


Causality

by Nova42



Series: The Providence Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Deviates From Canon, Family, Gen, Second Chances, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-26 17:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 73,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15006134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nova42/pseuds/Nova42
Summary: Part 2 of the Providence verse. "Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here." Lines will be drawn, sides chosen, and choices made that will shake the world to its core.





	1. Hymn for the Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Causality is part two of the Providence verse. This story may not make any sense at all, unless you read Providence first. So if you haven't read it already go "MMMbop" your way over there. For those of you coming here from Providence, I hope you enjoy the story and don't forget to review.

_The night was growing dark_  
_Thought you were beside me_  
_But I reached and you were gone_  
_Sometimes I hear you calling_  
_From some lost and distant shore_  
_I hear you crying softly for the way it was before_

_Where are you now?_  
_Are you lost?_  
_Will I find you again?_  
_Are you alone?_  
_Are you afraid?_  
_Are you searching for me?_  
_Why did you go? I had to stay_  
_Now I'm reaching for you_  
_Will you wait?_  
_Will I see you again?_

* * *

Month 1

Sam didn't save his brother.

He didn't save Dean from dying, didn't even know it was an imminent threat. A  _possibility_. His brother's injuries from the fall had been  _bad,_ but every medical professional he crossed paths with – from the paramedics who responded to the initial 911 call to the doctors who took possession of an unconscious, battered Dean when they came slamming into the bustling emergency room – made it sound like he was going to make a full recovery. Was going to be  _fine._

He'd only been away from his brother's side for a couple of hours, and in that time, something had happened to Dean.

_Cerebral edema_ , the doctor said, with some patented somber expression that Sam wanted to punch right off his face.  _We didn't realize the severity of his head trauma until . . ._

Until it was too late.

Until there was no hope.

Until Dean didn't stand a chance.

He nodded,  _thanked_ the son of a bitch, for whatever reason. Out of that autopilot of politeness that always had Dean standing on his foot and making gagging noises behind his back.

The first twenty-four hours afterward were a blur. Sam felt numb and distant, like he was dream-walking, struggling to find his breath beneath a rushing, violent flood of stimuli that was simply the result of the rest of the world continuing on like it didn't even care – didn't even notice – that Dean was dead. Bobby was always there; his one constant, providing a strong presence to lean on and taking care of him in a way that had only ever been Dean's job. Sam was listless, and dead on his feet, and at some point, the man shoved him into a bed and told him to sleep, assured him they'd decide what to do after he got some rest.

Sam was exhausted, mentally and emotionally wrung out, but sleep eluded him. He needed a better answer than a goddamned  _cerebral edema._  That was too pedestrian to have taken out the larger-than-life Dean Winchester. There'd been so much more going on with his brother than the doctors had known: time travel, for one, and dual souls co-habiting Dean's body.

Maybe they'd gotten it wrong, the spell. Maybe it was never meant to work out. Dean's two souls had been literally tearing him apart from the inside, and maybe he was never meant to survive in such a state. Maybe, even after everything Bobby had made him believe in that too-bright, too-sterile hospital waiting room, this was just Fate intervening.

There was just no way to know for sure.

After a restless night spent tossing and turning and reliving those last few hours with his brother, he and Bobby talked about what to do with Dean . . . with his body. They argued, then they yelled; a glass was broken at some point during the conversation, thrown across the kitchen in an explosion of glass and cheap liquor.

Then they drank a bottle of Bobby's good whiskey, and they talked again.

In the end, it came down to what Dean would have wanted, what he asked them to do.

Sam's heart twisted painfully as he watched the fire climb the pyre, snapping and popping as it chewed away at the wood as it reached toward the body wrapped in white cloth. His brother's body. He felt like a piece of him had been ripped out with brutal, ragged claws that cut deep trenches in his chest, leaving him broken and bleeding in a way that would never truly heal.

"Bobby . . . do you—" Sam swallowed thickly, his voice cracking against the lump lodged in his throat. "Do you think Dean . . . that he's with Mom and Dad?"

With wet eyes, Bobby laid his hand on Sam's shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze. "Yeah, son. I do."

ooooo

Year 20

A raw scream ripped from Dean's throat as the knife slid like butter through the skin below his ribcage, serrated blade grinding against bone. He forced air through his tightly clenched teeth, struggled to keep breathing despite the constant agony of a dozen knives turning his body into a human pin cushion. There was some irony, he supposed, to be found in the fact he didn't  _have_  a body here, that he was just another tortured soul stranded in Hell, and yet he still needed to breath. It was something the demon, Alistair, never failed to take advantage of, every day coming up with new and creative ways to reduce or altogether cut off his air supply as an addition to the scheduled torture.

Dean's phantom muscles locked up, his back arching away from the rack as another knife slide too easily through his skin, wedged itself between the ribs on his right side.

"You can make this stop, Dean." Alistair stood next to him, another long blade held loosely in his hand. "All of it."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, breathing through the pain, and bit down on his initial retort of "Eat me." He'd told Alistair that once before, and the demon did. Not personally, but Dean quickly became intimately familiar with how it felt to have a pack of hellhounds snack on your internal organs without the benefit of dying from the trauma.

It wasn't an experience he'd recommend to the average thrill-seeker.

He steeled himself, swallowed against the warm blood pooling in his mouth. He knew what Alistair really wanted: for Dean to break the first seal, to knock down the first domino. But he wouldn't, not this time. He refused to be their puppet. Last time around, it had taken the angels forty goddamned years to reach him in Hell and pull him out. By that time, he'd already broken the seal and was torturing souls for the fun of it.

This time, Dean could visualize the entire board. All the pieces. He knew the end game. Knew all he had to do was wait the demons out.

ooooo

Month 3

When Bobby woke, he knew that the house the empty. It was gut feeling, honed by decades of experience learning the hard way to take immediate, careful note of his surroundings.

Sam was an early riser, early enough to put even Bobby to shame. The kid always put coffee on first thing, drained most of a pot going through the morning's papers but would start a second, fresh one to be ready when Bobby woke. Sometimes he'd play soft music on his phone, his father's music. His brother's music. Sometimes he's make breakfast, egg white omelets or whole wheat pancakes because he just couldn't help himself, but always bacon, for Bobby. For Dean. He'd flip through some of the older lore books, or prowl the junkyard, or tidy up around the house. Anything to keep his hands busy and his mind preoccupied.

And he was gone.

ooooo

Year 40

He spent decades telling himself it would get easier. With every slice, every stab, every white-hot blade carving into his bones, he told himself that he'd already survived the worst things that the darkest, cruelest minds could think up.

He was wrong.

ooooo

Month 5

Bobby was slouched behind a mess of papers, nursing a glass of Johnny Walker, when there was a knock at the door.

Rain beat against the windows and a harsh wind howled, snatched the door right from his hand and slammed it back against the siding. That same gust of wind blew in a pale, disheveled, and utterly rain-drenched Sam Winchester.

Any anger Bobby may have been –  _had_  been – harboring since the kid took off without a word or a note of explanation died as he stared into those dark, desolate eyes. "Good to have you home, kid," is all he managed, wrapping the boy in a fierce bearhug that left him just as soaked as Sam.

One night, after just the right amount of whiskey, Bobby stared into the bottom of his glass, swirled the liquid there. "You try to make a deal?" he asked without looking at the kid, knowing full-well if a deal had been offered, Sam would have taken it.

"No," Sam replied hollowly.

Bobby believed him.

ooooo

Year 60

He counted the days, the weeks, the months, the  _years_  on the marks notched in his ribs. Felt each passing hour as a strip of flayed skin. Each minute, a blade down his back. Each second, another scrap of his confidence, his bravado, his  _hope_ , stolen away with the sharpened edge of a meat hook.

The angels hadn't come to pull him out like last time. He wasn't sure they would come at all. Maybe they no longer needed him. Who was to say just how much of the future he'd changed when he came back. He could very well be staring down an eternity in Hell.

ooooo

Month 7

Without Dean, they didn't know what was coming. Didn't know what to expect. So, they expected the worst.

Dean had left notes, careful scrawls that filled an entire journal, most of it gibberish to Sam but there were names and dates. Some of them weren't too far off.

Neither of them drank coffee for breakfast anymore, and one morning, Bobby dropped sketches he'd made for a panic room.

Sam chuckled, washed his cereal down with the rest of a beer. Then pounced on the idea.

ooooo

Year 80

Sam's screams echoed through the small chamber as the demon cut into him, over and over.

"Sam!" Dean tugged and pulled at the bonds securing him to the rack, struggling fiercely until he rubbed the skin of his wrists raw. He didn't know how the demon had gotten to his brother, could only assume it was the same person – or  _thing_  – that had thrown him into Hell himself.

He jerked roughly against the straps, a faint echo of hope shooting through him as he felt the bindings give. He gave another wrench, and one bloodied wrist pulling free of the restraint. With his right arm loose, Dean made quick work of the rest of the straps that had held him to the rack for so long.

The demon torturer had his back to Dean, was too preoccupied with ripping another scream from his little brother that he didn't notice the other occupant now free. Dean's eyes roamed the space and he grabbed the nearest sharp object, a machete-like knife, its tip already stained with blood. Probably his. Within moments, the demon lay slain on the ground, its severed head rolling a to a stuttered stop a few feet away.

Dean looked up, finding a moment's peace as he met his brother's grateful gaze, before the image of Sam shuttered once, twice, then disappeared completely.

He stumbled back, nearly tripping over the body of the demon he'd just killed. It was just a trick; he should have known. No one escaped the racks – no one. He'd spent enough time down here to know that, but he'd accomplished the impossible so many times before that Dean had allowed himself to believe that maybe, just this once, he'd be free.

"You don't have to go back on the rack."

Dean spun on his heel to find Alistair standing only a few feet away, watching with some form of twisted amusement.

The demon took a step forward. "The offer I made still stands."

Dean dropped his gaze to the knife in his hand, saw the scene playing out like he was watching it from above. He stood next to the rack, not strapped to it. Blood slicked the edge of the blade he gripped, trickled warmly down his hand. Tricked or not, he had spilled blood in Hell. He'd broken the first seal, and now there was nothing he could do to fix it.

He glanced over his shoulder, to the rack where he'd been strapped just moments before. For the first time in roughly eighty years, he wasn't in pain. He wasn't being tortured.

Dean looked back down at the knife in his hand, ran his thumb across its bloodied edge. Alistair was offering him a reprieve, just like last time. To be kept off the rack if he put souls on, if he ripped them apart like his own had been ripped apart for  _decades._  The first seal was broken; the choice he made now wouldn't make a difference to anyone. Not really. Every soul down here had been damned, one way or another, by their own hand. They would be tortured, ripped apart repeatedly. It made no difference by whose hand.

"What's your choice, Dean?"

Dean raised his eyes to the demon awaiting his answer.

_Did it really matter?_


	2. Blood on My Name

_Oh, Lazarus_

_How did your debts get paid?_

_Oh, Lazarus_

_Were you so afraid?_

_When the fires, when the fires have surrounded you_

_With the Hounds of Hell comin' after you_

_I've got blood, I've got blood on my name_

_When the fires, when the fires are consuming you_

_And the whole wide world's comin' after you_

_I've got blood, I've got blood_

_Blood on my name_

 

* * *

There was a chill in the room when Sam woke, as autumn announced its impending arrival with a smack of cold air against his face. He shouldn't have gone to bed without closing the window.

Then he realized this was the first morning he didn't think immediately of Dean. The rational part of Sam knew it was a good thing, that it was for the best, because that was the only way he was going to keep going forward in a world without Dean. But everything else in Sam felt like the lowest of life forms, and guilty for abandoning his brother, even in his thoughts.

Sam shoved his covers back then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He paused a moment dragging a hand down his face then resting his chin on his palm. He let his eyes glide across the room he'd taken refuge in for the last handful of months. He'd all but moved into Bobby's guest room. Clean clothes in a dresser, dirty clothes in the hamper, hell he even had a tooth brush in the bathroom.

He released an impatient huff, and let his hand drop down the hang between his knees. He wasn't sure what he was still doing here. He'd stuck around for a few months after Dean had . . . after. He toyed around with the thought of returning to school, but still being on the FBI's most wanted list sorta made that hard. Even if he could get around that, school just didn't feel right, he felt like there was something else he needed to be doing, he just didn't know what that was.

Then one morning he woke up, took off without a word, afraid Bobby would try to stop him, he needed to clear his head, get away from all the things that reminded him of his brother, "find himself" and his place in this new world. The only thing he managed to find was a few witches spelling themselves into upper middle class, their demon handler, two cracked ribs, and a rumor about demon named Lilith.

He did some research on the name, found varying information, some claiming Lilith to be Adam's first wife, other sources stating she was a demon of the of the night, seducing men, stealing babies. And another text had stated she was the first demon. She sounded like she could be a potential problem, if she was real. Other than the demon name dropping however, he'd heard nothing more about Lilith, nor any other suspicious demonic activity. At least nothing beyond what they'd dealt with before.

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly then fisted his hands and pushed off the bed. Whatever answers he was looking for he wouldn't find it in this bed room. He reached down grabbing a pair of discarded jeans from the floor and pulled then on, before grabbing a clean shirt from the dresser, tugging it over his head. Swiped his hair out of his eyes as he made his way out the bedroom and down the stairs.

He could hear Bobby was already awake and moving around in the study, heavy footsteps laden with stress as opposed to the usual morning light-footed roaming.

"Balls." Bobby lightly cursed looking at the phone in his hand like it was responsible for his current troubles.

"Something wrong?" Sam asked as he came into the room.

Bobby lifted his hat, rubbing at his forehead before replacing it. "Not sure." He sighed dropping the phone on his desk. "You remember Tamara and Isaac?"

Sam paused for a moment, going through a mental rolodex of names and faces before he found the proper one. "The hunters we worked with in Nebraska, with the seven deadly sin demons." That was the same time he'd started thinking something might have been wrong with his brother.

"They called me a few days ago about some monster they were hunting, need some help with the lore." He looked down at one of the books laying open on his desk. "Probably an Ausa, but haven't been able to get a hold of them."

"You think the, uh, Ausa might've gotten to them?"

Bobby pressed his lips into a thin line, "Doubtful, but that's not even the whole of it. I tried to get in touch with another hunter who lives near there, Oliva Lowery, see if she can find out what happened. Been trying to reach her for two days now. It's not like her to ignore this many calls."

0000000

The night had grown dark by the time they were leaving the house of the forth hunter on Bobby's list. They'd stopped by Olivia's place first, found her lying in the middle of her living room with her heart ripped out and signs of ghost activity. Bobby immediately started calling other hunters he knew to be in the area. Every call went unanswered.

Jed, Carl Bates, R.C. Adams, Tamara and Isaac. One by one Sam and Bobby found the hunters with their chests ripped out, just like Olivia's.

Rather than keep up the search for a live, unharmed hunter, they agreed the best course of action was to head back to Bobby's, regroup there, and try to figure out what the hell was going on. Of course, in true Winchester fashion, not even the drive back could happen without running some sort of problem.

Sam groaned, leaned into the passenger door and palmed his aching head.

Bobby shot him a furtive glance, maybe pressed a little harder on the accelerator. "How you doin' over there, kid?"

"Super." He sighed, shifting his shoulders against the seatback. "What the hell is going on here, Bobby?"

"Damned if I know. You're sure it was  _Meg_  who attacked you? Not a demon wearing her?"

"No," Sam responded automatically, because how could it have been Meg? He hadn't gotten the best look at his attacker in that gas station restroom, and after his head was bounced off the edge of the porcelain sink, his vision hadn't exactly been what one would call 'dependable.' But the flickering spirit who was smirking in the mirror as he pulled himself up from the grimy tile floor had certainly looked a hell of a lot like Meg Masters. "Yes," he amended, shaking his head. "I mean, I think I know what I saw, Bobby, but . . ."

"But," the older hunter encouraged, turning the wheel of the Impala, leading her into the drive as carefully as he could.

The car still jerked as it hit a pot hole, and Sam pressed his lips into a line, swallowed against the lurch of his stomach and prayed that Dean wasn't watching, because he'd be pissed at him for letting someone else drive his baby, even if that someone was Bobby. "But it doesn't make any sense. It's been at least two years, why would—"

"What the—" Bobby stomped on the brake, skidding to a stop right behind a R230 Mercedes SL parked at an angle across his driveway.

Sam leaned against a palm on the dashboard, squinted through the windshield at the car. "Who's that?"

"Hell if I know." Bobby glanced from the car to the house, nodding his chin the direction of the light coming from the kitchen.

"Maybe they're hungry?" Sam offered unhelpfully.

They weren't taking chances, not with a trail of dead hunters in their wake. Each man had a gun in hand before they set foot out of the car. The approached the dark house, and found the front door propped open a few inches. Sam pushed it inward just enough to slip through, with Bobby following close behind.

Sam turned the corner into the kitchen with careful steps, seeking out the intruder. The dark-haired woman wasn't hiding, was sitting in full view at the kitchen table, with a half-shot bottle of whiskey at her elbow. She gave Sam a quick onceover before shifting her gaze to the older hunter. "Bobby, this how you greet an old friend?"

Bobby stepped around Sam, his eyebrows climbing up under his cap as he asked incredulously, never lowering his gun, "Bela?"

0000000

Dean wasn't sure he was going in the right direction. He'd never seen the door before, and the only thing he had to go off was his brother's vague description from years ago and the information he was able to . . . collect over the last few years. He pressed his sweaty palms against another section of wall, all but ready to give up on this halfcocked plan, when the wall gave way and he fell forward.

Blinding light stole his vision as he hit the dirt on his hands and knees with a bone-jarring impact. "Son of a bitch." He squeezed his eyes shut and tucked his face away as he blinked furiously to adjust to a level of light his eyes hadn't seen in eighty-five years. His surroundings began to come into focus, and his breath—because apparently souls still needed to breathe—hitched.

"Well, outta the fire and into the frying pan." He'd escaped Hell, but wasn't sure this place was any better. Some nightmare thing lurked around every corner, just waiting to rip your head off. Dean knew that, intimately. He  _remembered_. A chill ran through him, he found himself suddenly both thrilled and terrified.

This place was bloody, and violent. It was dangerous to stay in one spot for too long, but for just a moment, he relished the sensation of soil between his fingers, the crisp scent of dried leaves in the air, the ability to  _feel_  anything. Last time he was here, he'd been a man with a body, and he'd felt every bit of it. The relentless heat, the hunger and thirst. The pierce of blades and the graze of fangs. He brought blood and scars back home with him, marks and reminders that he carried well into the future. This felt like a whole new ballgame, and he didn't know the rules.

Dean was just a soul now. Just the cobbled-together scraps what he'd done to himself when he went back in time, and after the merging spell, and whatever was left of that after Alistair . . .

He was out of Hell, and that was step one of 'Dean's twelve step program for escaping Hell.' Escape Hell via gate to purgatory. Step twelve was returning to his body, his brother, and Bobby, in that order. Now he just needed steps two through eleven. Dean sat back on his heels and rubbed a filthy hand against the back of his neck. He had no actual strategy beyond that, but figured  _don't die_  was as solid of a plan as any. Or, don't get . . . deader?

He was on his own. That much was for sure. It seemed like the angels didn't need him or didn't care what happened to him, and the demon who had thrown him into Hell had made it clear Sam and Bobby had no idea what was going down. It was far more likely they'd given him the proper hunter's funeral he'd asked for. Which was fine – even if there was a body he could escape back into he'd need someone to get all the parts working first, someone who could heal him, so he didn't look like the thriller video reject.

Dean rubbed his palms against the torn fabric of his jeans, he had one last play, one last Hail Mary throw he could heave toward the end zone.

He swallowed uneasily, ducked his head. "Cas," he said softly. "Castiel. Tell me you've got your ears on, buddy. I know you don't—you don't really know me, but I need your help, man. I'll—I'll explain everything, but I'm, uh, I'm not sure how I'm gonna get out of this mess otherwise. I need your help."

Dean held his breath and cracked one eye open, peering around. His shoulders slumped and he let out a defeated sigh. It was called a Hail Mary for a reason. He tucked his feet under himself and pushed up off the ground, pausing as a sharp pain pierced his head. He dug his fingers into his temple, waiting for the pain to fade back to the faint throb that had been plaguing him since the spell to merge his souls. He'd forgotten about it during most of his tenure in Hell; a small headache seemed incomparable to—well, everything else he'd been put through. But now that he was out from under the knife and augers and Alistair's aggressively inventive imagination, the headache was making a notable attempt to remind him it was still there.

Dean dropped his hand to his side. He'd stayed in one place for far too long already, and without hope of a little friendly angelic interference he wasn't sure what to do. Making his way toward the portal out of purgatory seemed like the most productive course of action, a potential step two in his newfound program. He wasn't exactly sure how this whole getting out of Purgatory thing was going down without a body, but he couldn't wait around here to find out. He spent a year here, watching souls slaughter each other. There sure didn't seem to be much of a difference between living human body and dead-ass vamp when the blades and teeth came out.

_It felt pure._

That's what he told Sam, once. And it was true, it did feel pure. To know everything here was a monster, to not have to worry about morals and innocents, about collateral damage. It was pure. But that didn't mean he had ever wanted to come back here. Just that he understood the drive, the motivation of every godforsaken soul stuck spending eternity here. Kill or be killed. Simple.

Dean winced, rolled his shoulder. He felt something pulling at him, a faint, unsettling tug. He turned toward it, narrowing his eyes as he appraised the dense, dreary foliage that seemed to stretch on forever. He knew immediately that it was the portal, calling to him. Maybe it had done the same the last time he was here, but he hadn't known to pay attention, to listen to it. Even though he was properly dead, and just a soul, he was still human, and this place wanted nothing to do with him.

He licked his lips, eyes darting left and right, ears perked for the sound of an approaching threat in the seemingly darkening day as he started in the general direction of the tug. Dean had no sense of time, and didn't recognize any landmarks in what he could see of the bloody, never-ending forest.

Last time he was here he at least had weapons – a knife and his M1911. This time he had nothing but the clothes on his back and even they weren't in great shape. He needed a weapon and needed it before something tried to—

A snap to his left brought Dean to a sudden halt. There was something out there, watching him. Stalking him. He planted his feet, tense and weary.

"Come on, you son of a bitch," Dean growled.

He was ready for the attack, but he was just a shredded, hell-weary soul, while the vampire that sprang forward from the brush had speed and teeth and a jagged blade in his hand. Dean zeroed in on the weapon, grabbing for the vamp's wrist as he went down. He summoned as much strength as he could and pulled his legs between himself and the monster, slamming his boots into its gut and knocking it back.

Dean scrambled for the blade as it hit the ground, fingers closing in on it as the vamp recovered. He tucked his shoulder down to meet the vamp's chest as it came charging back at him, flipped the thing over his back and slammed it into the ground. Before the vamp had a chance to recover Dean brought the blade down into its neck, severing its head.

He stumbled back a few steps, breathing heavily, and looked down at the blade in his hand. Now he had a weapon. Call it step two. He dragged his sleeve across his face, but before he got a chance to take another step away from the body, a force like a freight train plowed into him, knocking him roughly to the ground.

Dean twisted, trying to get back to his feet but this second monster was on top of him, pinning him down faster than his tired soul could keep up with. Dean refocused his energy into keep the sharp, jagged teeth bearing down on him away from his neck, pressing his forearm against the vamp's neck as he reached for the fallen blade, fingers scrabbling in the dirt mere inches from the handle.

The vamp grabbed his hand, slamming it against the ground and pinning it there, when suddenly a blur flew in from Dean's peripheral and knocked the vamp off him, taking it to the ground. Dean rolled to the side, snatching the weapon off the ground as he found his feet. He stood upright just in time to watch as the vamp was decapitated by a familiar face.

Dean's gaze widened as he struggled to catch his breath. "Benny?"


	3. Into the Nothing

_Screaming on the inside_

_I am frail and withered_

_Cover up the wounds_

_That I can't hide_

_Faded and weary_

_Live for the dying_

_Heaven hear me_

_I know we can make it out alive_

* * *

"What do you mean he isn't  _there_?"

The man shot to his feet, sent his chair crashing into the wall as he slammed his hands against the desktop. He was middle-aged, balding and on the pudgy side. There was nothing inherently threatening-looking about his appearance, but his anger had his inferiors cowering before him.

Alex flinched, taking a step back, rising her hands into the space between them as if that would do anything to hold back the angel's wrath. "We sent in our people to pull him out as soon as we got word the seal had been broken, but . . ." she trailed off.

"But what?" Zachariah gritted out between clenched teeth.

"Dean Winchester wasn't there." She fidgeted uncomfortably, wishing someone else, anyone else had been giving this news. "We couldn't…he isn't in Hell."

Zachariah pushed off from the desk, straightened his back and stood tall. "Then, where is he? People don't just  _leave_  Hell."

"I don't know." She cringed at her own words and moved quickly to follow them up, "We do know that if he's somehow made it to earth, he hasn't contacted his brother. If he does, we'll know."

The older angel lifted his chin. "Well, that's something." He clasped his hands behind his back, pacing stiffly behind the desk. "And Lilith?"

"According to our intel, she's already broken the second seal."

Zachariah moved around the desk to stand directly in front of Alex. He bent forward, until their noses were almost touching. "Find Dean Winchester," he ordered, and she recoiled from the blast of hot breath on her face. "I don't care who you have torture to do it. I don't care who you have to kill." He pulled back, reached up to straighten his silk tie. "He must be ready when the time comes."

oooooooo

Snarling and baring lethal fangs, Benny swiped at Dean with his blood-stained blade. Dean's eyes widened and he ducked under the swing, reacted just in time to block another with his forearm. He twisted his hand and got an awkward but firm grip on the vampire's wrist, knocked the weapon from his hand.

Dean stumbled back with the blade in his own hand. He held it aloft, but nonthreateningly. "Whoa, hey, Benny—"

Benny lashed out, a kick to the side of Dean's knee that knocked him to the ground, sending the blade skittering across the hard ground. The vampire recoiled then, registering what Dean said, and his eyes narrowed as he snatched his blade off the ground and pointed it at Dean. "I know you?"

"No. Well, not yet at least, but I know you." Dean shook off the blow, inspected a shallow scrape across the heel of his hand as he pulled himself to his feet.

"That so?"

"You're Benny LaFitte, from Carencro, Louisiana. You used to run with a vamp named Quentin, and you guys were basically vampire pirates–"  _Vampirates,_ Dean added silently, keeping it to himself this time – "til you fell for some Greek chick named Andrea, and then – "

"All right," Benny snapped, cutting him off.

Dean fell obligingly silent, eyes trained on the blade still directed at his chest as the vampire took a step forward.

"How do you know all that?"

oooooooo

"Not sure 'friend' is the word I'd use." Bobby curled his lip at the young woman.

Bela pouted, feigning an insulted expression, then turned her attention to the shotgun still aimed at her. "You gonna lower that thing?

"Depends. You gonna tell me why you're here? In my kitchen—" he shifted his gaze just a tick, to the half-spent bottle on the table then back to Bela, "—drinking my whiskey?"

Bela set her glass aside and leaned against the back of her chair. "Actually, I was looking for Dean. Last I heard he was holed up here, playing house."

"Dean?" Sam sucked in a harsh breath, feeling a fresh sting at the sound of his brother's name. Then the surprise registered, that his brother's name was coming off the lips of this strange woman. He looked wide-eyed between her and Bobby, before settling his gaze back on Bela. "What do you want with my brother?"

Bela lifted an eyebrow, studying Sam for a long moment. A smile pulled at the corner of her lips. "You must be Sam. The younger brother, yes? Oh, the things I have heard about you."

Sam frowned tightly. He felt uneasy, his curiosity itching at him, begging him to ask the question that her lure brought to the forefront of his mind, but the last thing he wanted to do was give her the satisfaction, or the leverage. He shifted awkwardly then jutted his chin forward, pressed on again with his initial inquiry. "What do you want with my brother?"

oooooooo

Dean took a deep breath, keeping both hands raised. "My name is Dean Winchester, and I'm—"

"Human." Benny sniffed then narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah." Dean nodded, dropping his hands a fraction. "Or I was."

"Well, ain't you just full of surprises." Benny stepped away, ran his free hand over his mouth. "Putting aside, for the moment, how you know what you know about me…how's a human soul find its way into purgatory? This ain't exactly a regular destination for your kind."

"The short version?" Dean shifted his weight from one foot to another, his eyes bouncing off Benny for a moment to do a quick survey of the surrounding tree line. This wasn't a place he really wanted to be standing still for very long, but before they could get moving, he knew he was not only going to have to convince Benny that not only was he  _not_  the threat, but that they were friends. Dean cleared his throat, turned his attention back to the vamp. "Right. I was sent to Hell by a demon and spent . . . some time there. When I saw an opportunity to escape, I took it."

"And you thought purgatory would be a nice change of scenery," Benny deadpanned.

Dean lifted a shoulder, feeling a phantom lick of flame at his back. "It's better than Hell," he returned stonily.

The vampire cocked his head, smirked humorlessly. "Not sure I agree with you there, chief."

Dean stepped forward. "I've been here before, spent a year fighting my way through this backside nightmare."

Benny raised an eyebrow. "You survived for a year,  _here_?" He gestured around the treacherous landscape with his blade. "How?"

"Had some help," Dean offered with a smile.

"Me?" Benny raised his chin. "Now why in the hell would I help you?"

"Because I got you out of here."

"Did you now?" Benny rolled his lips, eyes casting around the area. "Wanna share how you did that exactly?"

"Kinda hard to explain. It's a long, complicated story." Dean sighed and pressed his fingertip into his temple, trying to subtly relieve the pressure building there.

Benny looked away, scanning the area before bringing his gaze back to rest on Dean. "You got someplace better to be?"

Dean nodded his head in capitulation, but was unsure where to start. Someone needed to write an instruction manual:  _How to Tell People You're from the Future._  Or maybe he could write it, once he was through with this entire ordeal. If he was  _ever_ through with it. He took a deep breath and plunged right in. Headfirst had kind of always been his style anyway.

oooooooo

Bela pressed her lips into a thin line and considered the two men, carefully debating her answer before she finally spoke. "I need Dean's help with something. And I'd really prefer talking to him about it, if you don't mind."

Sam took a step back and glanced at Bobby, looking to the older hunter to take the lead here. He sure as hell didn't think he had it in him to relive the whole awful mess of what had happened to his brother. He didn't know this woman and didn't owe her any kind of explanation.

Bobby scratched as his beard, himself debating what to reveal to this Bela, whoever she was. He exhaled heavily. "Dean's not here."

"Where is he?"

"Dead." Bobby's eyes ticked over to Sam, a quick, wide-eyed apology. "About eight months ago."

Bela jerked her head back then looked away. For the briefest moment, Sam could see a spark of fear in her eyes before it was quickly covered up. He still didn't have a clue who this woman was, how she knew Dean or what she wanted with him.

"Look," Bobby started out, an edge sharpening his voice. "We have a few issues of our own to deal with here, so you can either tell us what it is you need, or . . ." He let the sentence trail off, gesturing toward the door behind him, the implications hanging in the stale air amidst the dim kitchen light.

Bela stood abruptly and started to stalk across the kitchen, toward the door. She stopped just shy of the threshold, folded her arms across her chest. "I made a deal," she said softly, like speaking the words caused her physical pain. She didn't turn, keeping her back to them. "A little over ten years ago."

Sam frowned. "A deal? As in . . ."

Bela turned, her eyes once more large and wet with fear. She lifted a shoulder. "Crossroads, as you would call it. Dean called me a few months back, offered me a hex bag to keep the hellhounds a bay in exchange for a talisman he needed. I don't know how he found out about . . . my deal. The hex bag has worked so far, but . . ."

"But . . . " Bobby prompted. He'd lowered the shotgun, but still had the weapon in hand.

Bela tossed her hair, and her face hardened, the show of vulnerability wiped from her features. "Then I was attacked by the ghost of someone who died a good many years ago. She tried to rip my heart out of my chest. Don't suppose you have a hex bag for that?"

Bobby and Sam exchanged a glance, prompting Bela to stomp her foot. "What? What aren't you telling me?"

"When was this?" Sam asked.

"Why does it matter  _when_ it was?" Bela snapped.

"Because it does," Sam shot back. "When did it happen?"

"About two days ago."

"Same time as the others," Sam supplied seriously, looking at Bobby.

Bobby pressed his lips into a thin line. "Except the other victims were hunters, and Bela here—" Bobby gestured at the woman, who cocked her head and smiled tightly "—is about as far from a hunter as you can get."

Bela rolled her eyes and stepped closer to the two, dropping her arms to her sides. "So, about this ghost that attacked me . . ." She trailed off, waiting for one of them to fill in the blanks.

oooooooo

Dean watched Benny, holding a breath he shouldn't even have.

The vampire rolled his lips against his teeth and nodded his head once before finally breaking the silence. "Okay."

Dean jerked his head back. "Okay? I tell you I'm from the future and met you here like five years from now and that's all you have to say?"

Benny shrugged and sheathed his blade. "It's a little crazy, I'll give you that. But, given what you know 'bout me, things I've never told anyone . . .let's just say, you make a strong case." Benny looks around. "Though, I gotta say, you bein' human is as good as shining a – "

" – beacon, yeah," Dean finished. "We've had this chat."

Benny lifted his chin appraisingly. "All right, future boy. What do you expect we do now?"

"There's a portal—"

"S'just a rumor."

"It's not," Dean countered. "It's real, and it's our ticket outta here."

"It's a  _human_  portal, jackass. No monsters allowed."

"Look." Dean paused, took a breath. "You help me get there, and I'll get you back topside. Just like last time."

"Why?"

Dean shook his head. He didn't think it would be this hard of a sell. "Why what?"

"Why bust me out. I know you said we ran together for a time . . . " He paused, testing the words carefully. " . . . in the future, but somehow I doubt you're getting me out of purgatory out of the goodness of your undead heart." Benny hefted his blade against his shoulder. "So, what's in it for you?"

Dean hesitated, dragging a hand across his mouth, "I told you. We were friends. And if that's not enough—" Dean shrugged and bit the bullet. "I did just spend eighty-five years in Hell. I'm a human soul in a land of monsters." He took a deep breath, hating having to admit to a weakness. "And I won't make it through purgatory on my own."

Benny nodded once, apparently satisfied with the answer. "Fair enough. Just one problem."

"Just one?"

Benny exhaled deeply, squinted. "Dean, I gotta say, I don't know how this whole plan of yours is gonna work. Were you an intact, living human being, this place would be itchin' to spit you out of its craw so bad your head would spin. But…"

"But I'm not intact. And I sure as hell ain't living."

"So where's that put us?"

Dean rolled his lips. "I have a plan."

"You do?"

Dean paused, tilting his head. "I'm working on it."

Benny pressed his lips in a tight line and made a dissatisfied hum. "Mm, gonna need more than that, Dean."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "You got someplace better to be?" He shifted his weight again. "Yeah, okay, it's a shitcreek without a paddle situation. I'll grant you that. But like you said, I'm a friggin' beacon for all things nasty. So if you think there's even a snowball's chance we can make this happen, we've gotta start moving." He sent his gaze on another quick sweep of the area. It was a miracle they hadn't been attacked yet. "Pretty much now."

Benny still took a minute to think it through, tapping his fingertips against his thigh. Finally, a smile crossed his face. "All right, chief. Lead the way."

oooooooo

"Who was it?"

"Is that relevant?"

Sam fought the urge to rub at his suddenly throbbing temples, not wanting to give Bela the satisfaction of knowing she was getting to him. "It might be."

Bela flopped back into the chair. "Fine. If you  _must_ know, it was someone I worked with a long time ago, who got killed on the job."

"And?" Sam narrowed his eyes, waiting for the other shoe.

Bela sighed and rolled her eyes. "And it's possible they might think I was responsible for their death."

"Were you?" Bobby asked skeptically like he already knew the both the truth and the answer he was going to receive.

"No."

"Uh huh."

Bela folded her arms over her chest, jutting her chin out. "Despite what you may think of me, I—"

"Shh!" Bobby threw up a hand, cutting her off.

"Wha – Bobby, what's going . . ." Sam trailed off, watching as his own warm breath clouded in front of his face. "Crap." He snapped his shotgun back up and trained the barrel on the other side of the kitchen.

"Oh, fantastic." Bela pushed up from her chair and moved swiftly to stand next to the two older hunters while her eyes shifted across the room, searching for any threat. "Bobby, if I die in this moldy old hovel you call a house—"

"You're not gonna die here." Bobby shook his head then continued under his breath, "couldn't put up with your ghost." He moved away from the two, stepping out of the kitchen and into the hallway. "Stay with Sam," he called over his shoulder.

Sam rolled his eyes as the woman pressed close to his side.  _Thanks, Bobby._

"Hey, Sam."

He whirled at the sound of the new voice, peering into the dark corner as a shadowy figure emerged.

"Remember me?"

Sam lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes, dropped his shoulder and his aim as he recognized the man. He swallowed uneasily. "Ronald, right?"

Bela stayed close behind him, hissed in his ear, "friend of yours?"

He tightened his hold on his shot gun, ignoring Bela's question as he anticipated what the spirit was going to say. "Ronald, look, man. I'm—"

"What, sorry?" Ronald curled his hands into tight fists as he stalked closer. "I'm dead because of  _you_ , Sam. You were supposed to help me!" He lunged at Sam, only to explode into an ethereal poof with a loud  _bang_.

Bela ducked away with a shocked yelp as rock salt pellets pinged off the wall and stung Sam's legs through his jeans. They turned to find Bobby standing behind them with an expression that was nearly equal parts amusement and irritation.

"If you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk." Bobby walked past them, heading toward the study. He laid the shotgun on the desk, keeping it close to his hand as he started gathering dusty books. "Whatever the hell is going on, it's happening to us. Now."

Sam followed Bobby into the study. "Bobby, all of these ghosts . . . they're people we know?"

"More like people we couldn't save," the hunter answered, not looking up as he hunched over the desk and started flipping through pages.

"I'm going to need another drink," Bela announced, striding back toward the kitchen. She stopped just short of entering the room, turning on her heel with a hand raised and her mouth open.

Bobby rolled his eyes, produced a fresh bottle of whiskey from the other side of the desk and slammed it to the desktop. She smiled a tight, grateful smile and snagged the bottle by the neck, flopped onto the couch under the window.

Sam wasn't so sure he didn't need a drink himself.

Bela gestured with the bottle, fingers wrapped around the neck. "What's the plan, gentlemen?"

An image sprang to Sam's mind, and he frowned. "Ronald had something on his hand."

Bobby glanced up, hands frozen on the pages. He narrowed his eyes. "Like a tattoo?"

"More like a – like a brand."

Bela gulped a mouthful of whiskey, squinted up at Sam. "The spirit that attacked me, I saw a mark, too."

"What did it look like?"

"Uh . . ." Sam glanced around the room, picked up a pencil and loose page from the desktop only to have the paper snatched immediately from his hand.

"Maybe we don't doodle on the hundred-year-old text," Bobby said drily, offering Sam a notepad instead.

He scribbled a rough sketch of the circular pattern he'd spotted on Ronald's hand and held it up for Bela to inspect. She nodded, and Sam handed the pad back to Bobby.

The man squinted down at the paper. "Hm."

"Hm, what, Bobby?"

"I may have seen this before." The hunter's breath clouded in front of his face, and he raised his eyes. "We gotta move." Bobby scrambled to scoop up his shotgun and an armload of books and pages.

Sam offered Bela a hand, hauling her up from the couch as they rushed to follow Bobby deeper into the house, instead of out of it. "Where are we going?"

"Someplace safe."

oooooooo

Dean yanked his blade out of the body of a monster he wasn't even sure he'd ever seen before, kill number fifty-eight – or was it fifty-nine? The trek across purgatory had been just as rough and bloody as he'd expected it to be, as he'd  _remembered_ it to be. He stumbled back a few steps, sucking in lungful of air he wasn't sure he really needed, and squinted in the tree line. "Looks like we're clear."

"You know," Benny said, stooping and wiping his blade clean on the shirt from whatever beast he'd just dispatched. "Your humanity's drawin' an awful lot of attention."

"Yeah, you've said that." Dean dragged his wrist across his sweaty, grimy forehead and studied the path ahead.

A rustle of leaves to his right drew the attention of them both, and he hefted his blade. Benny was closer though, and stepped carefully toward the disturbance, raising his own weapon. A figure surged from the trees in a vicious, controlled blur, easily blocking the vampire's attack and pushing him backward like he weighed nothing.

Dean didn't have a great angle on the confrontation, and the newcomer was reaching toward Benny head by the time he recognized the flash of brown trench coat. "Wait!"


	4. Awake O' Sleeper

_For his children left the promised land;_

_In search of their own way_

_They kick and scream like wayward sons_

_And always wanting to sleep_

_And dream away these evil days_

_In hopes that God can't see_

_Do you hear the lion roar? (Awake O Sleeper)_

_Stand with me, we'll fight the war (Awake O Sleeper)_

_Let no man bring me harm; I bear the marks of God_

* * *

Dean grabbed a handful of Benny's collar and yanked him out of the way of Castiel's reach. The vampire tumbled to the ground as Dean flung his not-a-body between them.

He held up a hand, knowing he didn't provide much of an obstacle against the angel, with or without a body. "Whoa, hey, Cas."

Castiel's eyes narrowed, sharp and cold. If he noticed the familiarity it didn't show in his stoic expression. He tilted his head slightly to the side, looking around Dean to the vampire before sliding his gaze back. "You're protecting this . . . abomination?" The angel's voice was low, gruff, and full of self-righteousness.

Behind Dean, Benny pushed himself to his feet, made a dramatic show of brushing the dirt from his pants. "What'd he just call me?"

Dean rolled his eyes, raising his other hand as he stayed planted firmly between the two. "Just stand over there for a minute." He turned his attention back to Cas. "And yes, he's a friend. So no, you know, smiting."

Cas made a noncommittal sound but shifted his stance to something more relaxed.

Dean dropped his hands, relaxed his shoulders. "Cas, man . . . it's good to see you, buddy."

Something passed over the angel's features, but it happened too fast for Dean to be able to give it a proper label. Castiel then tilted his head as if trying to solve a particularly tangled puzzle. His eyes narrowed, and before Dean could move the angel disappeared.

Dean blinked in surprise at the spot where his old friend had just been, and there was a soft thump behind him, the sound of a body hitting the ground. He whirled around to find Benny crumpled in a heap at Castiel's feet.

The angel stepped over Benny's prone form. "We need to talk, Dean. Alone."

0000000

"You built a panic room?"

Bela stopped abruptly in the middle of the small, circular space. She slowly turned on her heel, eyes wide and mouth dropped open as she took in the gun rack, the cot, the devil's trap constructed in iron beams beneath the lazily spinning fan.

Bobby met Sam's gaze and smiled, lifted a shoulder. "We had a free weekend."

"Hunters are so paranoid." She shook her head, then sat heavily in a chair.

The older hunter dropped a stack of books to the desktop. "Paranoid or not, ain't no ghosts getting through these walls." He pounded a fist against the iron for emphasis, and a dull, metallic  _clang_ echoed. "Solid iron, reinforced with salt." He slapped a small duffel against Sam's chest. "Why don't you two make yourselves useful and work on some more salt rounds?"

Sam nodded and moved to a table on the other side of the small space. He unzipped the bag and removed the necessary supplies, silently packed a few shells with rock salt while Bela huffed and sneered at his side. There was something she'd said upstairs, something that'd managed to stick in his mind through the mad rush down to the safety of this room. There was still a threat in the house, but Bobby was right – no ghosts were getting in here. It might be an ill-timed spare moment, but it was likely as much of one as he was going to get. He looked over to where Bela sat with a look so equally bored and disgusted it had to be uniquely hers, and he waited to speak until she sensed his eyes on her, and her narrowed gaze drifted up to meet his.

"What?"

"Exactly what kind of things have you heard about me?"

0000000

Dean knelt next to Benny, checking on the vampire while throwing a glare back at the angel for his unnecessary action.

"Your friend's alive." he said, hesitating on the word friend. "Or, as alive as he was."

Dean stood up, a strong feeling of déjà vu washing over him as he thought back on the first time he met Castiel. "Look, Cas—"

"You must leave this place. We have work for you, Dean Winchester."

Dean snorted bitterly, remembering every time some otherworldly entity told him that. He took a breath. "Listen, Cas, I'm not the Dean Winchester you're here to – to raise from perdition or whatever the hell. I'm from – "

" – the future," Castiel finished. "I know."

"Wha – " Dean recoiled. "You  _know_? How?"

"When you returned to this time, the impact was like that of a small comet. The shockwaves reverberated through all of space and time, shaking the very gates of Heaven."

"Awesome." Dean dug his fingers into his temple, attempting to push back the ever-growing headache bleating behind his eyes.

Castiel took a step forward, his eyes making a quick circuit around the clearing before locking onto Dean's "You are not safe here. You must return to your world and stop the seals from breaking."

"Cas—" Dean started, wanting to warn his friend about Zachariah's plan, about how the angels had allowed the seals to be broken, but before he had a chance the angel's fingers locked around Dean's forearm, and an odd current flowed between them. Castiel froze, rigid, and his eyes glowed a vibrant blue.

0000000

Bela smiled sweetly. "Why? You have some dark dirty secret you don't want anyone to know?"

Sam dropped the salt round in his hand and leveled a glare at the woman.

Bela rolled her eyes. "You can unclench, Samuel. I haven't heard anything untoward about you. Though knowing how your brother operated . . . " She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I'm not incredibly keen on trusting _you_ with my life."

Sam frowned. His eyes shot to where Bobby was bent over an array of open texts, seemingly unaware of the conversation taking place a few feet away. "What are you talking about?"

The corner of Bela's mouth lifted. She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. "Your big brother was no Boy Scout, Sam. Surely, you knew that."

Heat began in build in Sam's chest, his cheeks. "My brother was a good man."

"Your brother used a talisman to trap a man incapable of dreaming in his dreams." Bela raised her eyebrows, a hand. "Don't get me wrong. That's impressive. But Dean Winchester must have been a special brand of bastard to sentence another human being to a fate like that."

Sam physically recoiled at her words. He floundered for a response, an explanation, an excuse – but before he could find one, Bobby interrupted them.

"Found it."

"What?" Sam turned his attention from Bela, but he shoved the woman's words into the back of his mind to be revisited later, when the literal ghosts of their past weren't trying to kill them.

"The symbol you saw—the brand on the ghosts." Bobby started taping the tip of his pencil against the book before him.

Sam crossed the room, stood next to Bobby. "Brand?"

"It's the Mark of the Witness."

"Witness to what?" Bela asked as she stood up, looking down at the book laid out on the table.

"The unnatural. None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts - they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose."

Sam's chewed on the inside of his cheek then asked, "but why, and who?"

Bobby frowned, his brow furrowing deeply. "Do I look like I know? But whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls. Whoever did this had big plans. It's called 'the rising of the witnesses.' It figures into an ancient prophecy."

Bela placed a hand on the table and leaned closer to get a better look at the pages. "Bobby, is this . . ." She paused, pulled her gaze up to the old hunter. "Is this the book of Revelations?"

Bobby nodded solemnly. "It's a sign."

Sam was used to a Big Bad Thing looming around every corner, but Bela's eyes widened as she absorbed the meaning of Bobby's words. "Of the apocalypse?" Her gaze darted between the two men. "You're joking, right?"

"I wish. The rise of the witnesses is a – mile marker." Bobby adjusted his cap, looked back down at the book.

"All right." Bela pushed away from the table, folding her arms over her chest. "So how long until the world ends. You know, so I can plan my weekend around it."

"How about we survive our friends out there first, and then you can plan your last hurrah."

"Any ideas how to stop them?" Sam asked, keeping the others focused on the task at hand. He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking to Bobby for the sort of guidance he used to get from his brother.

"There's a spell." The hunter gestured to the paper in front of him. "To send the witnesses back to rest. Should work. If I translated it correctly, I think I got everything we need here at the house."

"Don't suppose you have everything you need in here?" Bela cocked an eyebrow, gazing hopefully at the older man.

Bobby snorted softly. "You thought our luck was gonna start  _now_  all of a sudden? Spell's gotta be cast over an open fire."

"The fireplace in the library." Sam nodded, taking a few steps back to gather the few salt rounds he'd made.

"Bingo."

Bela huffed, looking at the door of the panic room then back to Bobby. "That's just not as appealing as a ghost-proof panic room."

0000000

Cas stumbled back a few steps, his eyes fixed on some middle ground, as if seeing something only he could see. After a long moment the angel slowly brought his eyes up, once more locking onto Dean's with an uncomfortable but not unfamiliar intensity. "Dean."


	5. Reignite

_Hope can drown lost in thunderous sound_

_Fear can claim what little faith remains_

_But I carry strength from souls now gone_

_I will never surrender_

_Crush my heart into embers_

_I will reignite_

_Death will take those who fight alone_

_But united we can break a fate once set in stone_

* * *

He stepped out of the passenger side of the large, rusty pick-up and waved his thanks to the middle-aged man who'd been nice enough – and trusting enough – to stop for a hitchhiker. The truck pulled way with a roll of crunching gravel, but he didn't yet move from where he stood at the entrance to Singer's Salvage Yard.

Dean instead took a moment to relish the cool feel of autumn settling down in South Dakota. He idly wondered if Benny, alive and whole once more, would go after his maker again, and if the vampire would contact him if things went sideways. Being from the future came with a lot of rules, but Dean still made sure to warn him about Andrea, so his friend wouldn't be blindsided should he decide to go after the nest.

Knowing how Benny had struggled the last time around, adapting to being alive, he had wanted the vamp to stay close, but they each had their own demons to sort through and, in the end, had agreed that Dean coming back from the dead would be hard enough for Sam and Bobby to swallow without the added bonus of showing up with a vampire he claimed was a friend.

Dean had no intention of hiding Benny's existence from the others, but he wanted to wait for the dust to settle on his homecoming before he dropped that particular bomb on the two hunters.

His gaze drifted over the salvage yard and to up to Bobby's house, and he couldn't help but wonder if Sam was even here. If the kid had listened to him and stuck close to Bobby, or if his death had once more propelled his little brother into a downward spiral driven by a need for answers or revenge. If he tried to hunt down the demon that threw Dean into hell. If he succeeded. Dean wasn't sure what Sam knew about the events of that day. Whether the demon had gotten away undiscovered, or if the black-eyed son of a bitch had waited for the younger hunter, taunted him in an effort to push him into making the same mistakes as the last time.

Dean curled his fingers into a tight fist, uncharacteristic anxiety flooding through him as he thought about the sheer volume of answers he was set to receive in the course of the next few moments. He had considered calling Sam a few times on his trip from the 100 Mile Wilderness in Maine, and again after he and Benny parted ways in Louisiana but had squashed the urge. He knew the idea that he was back, and alive, was going to take more assurance than he could offer over the phone, just as it had the last time Cas brought him back from the dead. As much as he wanted to hear his brother's voice, there was no way to convince Sam that he was really himself, and not just one of the many variations of ghost, demon, or monster that could alter form.

Dean ran a hand over his face, feeling tired but happy the miserable headache was gone, the one that had been pressing on his eyes since they performed the spell to merge his souls. Even so, he was weary, felt sluggish and drained in a way that drove down into the very marrow of his bones and filled them with stone. But he knew there was no time for rest now. The first seal had been broken, the apocalypse jumpstarted once more because of  _him_. Because he let himself be tricked when he should have known better. He dropped his hand to his side and started down the long drive.

Before they split ways, Cas told him a second seal had already been broken. Lilith had once more raised the victims that hunters couldn't save and sent them barreling right after them. The thought pushed Dean's tired feet to move a bit faster, had him even more anxious to see that his brother and Bobby were okay.

He had his fingers wrapped around the front porch railing and his boot sliding onto the bottom step when things went downhill very suddenly, and very quickly.

The front door slammed against the siding of the house and his brother was framed on the threshold, face pinched and angry, with a shotgun in his hands. Dean had a little experience being on the wrong end of Sam's firearm, and his brother's expression was all business.  _Shit,_ he thought, releasing the railing and ducking to the side just as the  _crack_ of a barrel sounded. The shot missed the mark, but Dean wasn't fast enough to evade the it entirely. A disturbingly familiar explosion of pain erupted in his left shoulder, and the force of the blast turned the world abruptly on his axis, knocked him sideways.

Sam stepped fully onto the porch, shotgun cocked and ready to unload another blast. "Bobby!"

Dean managed to keep his feet, pressed trembling fingers to his burning, bleeding shoulder. A groan passed his lips as his eyes shot up to his brother. "You shot me!" This is  _exactly_  why Dean couldn't have called first. "I can't believe you shot me . . . again." He studied the blood spotting his fingertips, winced as he gingerly pressed his hand back to the stinging spot. "That's three. And I would just like to point out I've never shot you, ever."

Sam hopped down the steps and closed the distance between them, shoved the nose of the shotgun against Dean's sternum. "Why are you wearing my brother's face?"

"Shit, Sam. It's me, Dean, you trigger happy sasquatch!" Dean wanted to shove the barrel of the gun away but was honestly worried what sort of damage salt rounds could do at point blank range. "And for the record? You've maxed out your lifetime allotment of  _shooting_   _me_."

Sam frowned. He dropped his shoulder but didn't seem convinced. "I thought you said the witnesses were all laid back to rest?" He called back toward to the house, not taking his eyes or aim completely off Dean.

Bobby appeared on the porch, holding what Dean could only assume to be a silver knife. "They are. If the salt rounds didn't do anything, this has to be something else." The older hunter trotted down the steps, expression wary, and stood next to Sam.

Dean had expected some range of disbelief when he appeared suddenly on Bobby's doorstep. Last time, Bobby had tried to gut him with the same silver knife he currently had in hand, and then Sam had done the same thing. He sighed, grimaced as he pulled his palm away from the bloody mess of his shoulder and raised his hands placatingly. "Look," he started, eyes trained on Sam. "Your name is Samuel Winchester, and you're my  _brother._  Our dad died when . . ." Dean paused, the time gone by not making the memory any less bitter. "When he sold his soul in exchange for my life. About a year and half ago, my soul was sent from the future to try and fix things before they go horribly wrong. I almost exploded." He turned his attention to the older hunter, "Your name is Robert Steven Singer. You became a hunter after your wife got possessed, and... you're about the closest thing I have to a father." He raised his eyebrows. "Guys, It's me."

Sam shook his head, finger visibly tightening on the trigger. "That's not possible. You died. I saw your body," he said, voice pitching with frustration. "We salted and  _burned_  your body and scattered the ashes!"

"I—" Dean started, stopped. He cocked his head. "You burned my body?" Actually, that made some sense, and would certainly explain why Cas said it'd take more power to restore his body this time around.

Bobby's eyes were wide in the wake of his little plea, and he hadn't spoken a word. He took a step forward, hand outstretched like he meant to pull Dean in for a long-overdue embrace. Even with his defenses up, even knowing this was a tenuous situation, Dean felt his exhausted body leaning in. The hunter's calloused palm gripped his shoulder, then tightened, then Dean caught the glint of the silver blade catching the moonlight as it came around in a sweeping arc at him.

He quickly lifted his arm to block a strike he was pretty sure was aimed for something more vital. Bobby had been around and around the block, and he didn't pull his shots. The knife gashed down his forearm, and Dean jerked away with a hiss. "Damn it, Bobby! I'm not a shapeshifter! Or a revenant! See?" He twisted his arm, showed them a cut that was doing nothing more suspicious than bleeding sluggishly.

Bobby blinked a few times, jaw dropping. "Dean?" He took an unsteady step forward, the knife slipping from limp fingers to clatter against the gravel.

Dean's shoulders fell. His shoulder throbbed and his forearm was on fire, but he couldn't honestly care less at the moment. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"But . . ." Sam shifted his feet. The nose of the shotgun lowered, and in the dim light Dean could see the beginnings of hope taking shape in his little brother's eyes.

Bobby slowly extended his hand once more, gripped Dean's uninjured shoulder in an entirely different way. He yanked him close, mindful of the wounds as his arms wrapped around Dean in a desperate hug. Dean lifted his heavy-feeling arms and returned the embrace. The older hunter released him and took a step back, offering enough room for Dean to find himself in another equally desperate hug. He swallowed the wince of pain as the fresh wounds on his shoulder protested, but really, the brief jag of pain was negligible. He would never verbally admit the sheer feel of relief and happiness that swelled within him at  _finally_ , after eighty-two long years, experiencing any sort of physical contact that didn't end in mind-numbing agony.

Dean tangled his fingers in his brother's shirt as they pulled away from each other, not willing to let go completely. Sam likewise kept a hand on his shoulder, shotgun forgotten on the ground at his feet.

Bobby's hand cupped the side of Dean's head, gave the younger hunter a soft pat. "It's . . . it's good to see you, boy."

"Yeah, you guys too." Dean couldn't help the wide smile that pulled at his cheeks. He was  _home_ , and for the moment, that trumped everything else going on.

Bobby let his hand drop. "But how? I mean, we salted and burned your body. Even if you could slip out of . . . wherever, you . . ."

"Wouldn't have a body to slip back into?" Dean nodded, gaze darting to his brother's pale, wide-eyed face. "I know. It's a long story. If we could do it over some whiskey, maybe food?" He finally released Sam's shirt in favor of putting a light hand over the pulsing pain in his shredded shoulder. He was going to have some interesting bruises from this one.

Sam's eyes trailed down to his hand, then widened. "Shit, Dean, I shot you! Are – are you okay?" His own hand remained on Dean's arm, as if he was afraid breaking contact would cause Dean to disappear entirely.

"Well, I was shot. Then almost stabbed." Dean displayed his forearm, the defensive wound from Bobby's knife. "But I've had worse." He let his hands drops to his side, shrugged. "Nothing some food and a strong drink can't fix."

Sam nodded slowly. He let go of his brother, looking like it physically pained him to do so, and bent down to scoop up the fallen shotgun. Dean started toward the house, and the others followed closely behind him.

He stopped a few steps into the house, relishing the smell of old books, grease, and a musky, familiar odor that begged for a good cleaning. Dean turned to look at the older hunter, "Hey, Bobby, you said the wit—" he jerked back as he took a face full of holy water. He turned his face away, spit out the water that had gotten in his mouth. "I'm not a demon either, you know," he said wearily.

Bobby shrugged, holding up the flask of holy water that'd been sitting on a small table just inside the doorway. "Sorry. Can't be too careful."

Dean dragged a hand down his face and flicked away the water, then continued toward the kitchen.

"Dean? I thought you were dead."

Dean stopped short at the question, gaze shifting to get a view of the young woman as she wandered in the kitchen, rocking some serious bedhead like she'd just woken up. She flopped into a chair at the table, narrowed her eyes appraisingly. "I got better?" he said slowly, then swung around to frown at Bobby and his brother. "Uh, what the hell's Bela doin' here?"

Bobby snorted as he stepped around the younger hunter to pull a few beers from the fridge. "Better question is, what's she  _still_  doin' here." His voice raised in volume as he spoke, addressing Bela more than Dean.

Bela rolled her eyes then looked pointedly at Dean, resting her forearms on the table. "The better question is, why is there a dead man in the kitchen?" She paused, eyed him thoughtfully. "I'm truly happy to see you alive, Dean, but . . ."

"The dead don't often come back, not without one hell of a string attached," Bobby finished, offering one of the beers to Dean before stepping back to lean against countertop.

Dean took the beer gratefully as he took a spot at the counter next to Bobby. "Castiel, the angel I told you about, he uh . . . he brought me back."

Bela held up a hand. "Wait – did you say  _angel_? As in fluffy wings and a halo?"

Dean hitched a shoulder, took a pull from the bottle. "I'm not sure I'd describe them like that, but, yeah. Actual angels. Trust me, the first time he told me what he was, I didn't buy it either."

"Wait." Sam looked up from the chair he'd claimed at the table. "You mean the same angel that sent you from the . . ." he paused, glanced over at Bela before looking back to Dean.

Dean's gaze drifted to Bela, as well. He didn't trust her as far as he could throw her, but Cas already said the angels knew what he'd done, that he traveled from the future, and it was painfully clear the demons knew, too. At this point, he didn't see much reason to tiptoe around the subject, and despite her reputation, this wasn't anything she could use against him, not with all the key players already in the loop. "The angel that sent me – my soul – from the future. Yeah. It's the same guy . . . well, sort of. He's the Cas from this time."

As crease cut across Sam's forehead. "I thought you said getting his help in all this wouldn't be easy?"

Dean took a deep breath, bought some time with another long pull of beer as he worked to figure out the simplest way to explain what exactly had happened between him and Cas in purgatory. "Sam, you remember when we ran into . . . the trickster? Who, by the way, is the archangel Gabriel. He said there was something hidden in the back of my older soul, something locked away?"

Sam jerked his head back. "W-wait. He was an archangel? Like a real actual angel? But how – I mean, why didn't he . . ." He trailed off, jaw dropped open as he lost mental steam in the wake of the revelation and was clearly unable to settle on just one question to ask.

"Sam, focus." Dean snapped his fingers in the young hunter's direction, swallowing the grin that pulled at the corner on his mouth. He was bone-weary and his shoulder still ached, but he was definitely enjoying this chance to mess with his brother.

Sam's mouth shut with an audible  _clack_  and shook his head like he had water in his ears, took a long moment like he was filing the information away for later use. He finally replied, "right, uh, yeah. He said it made it impossible for him to tell who had sent you back."

Dean nodded. "When the Cas from the future sent my soul back, he apparently sent more than he originally told me. Tucked away in a dark little corner behind a mental seal were his memories. At least, the important ones. The seal was made to unlock and transfer those memories when he and I came in contact in this time." He winced, rubbed at a phantom ache at the back of his skull. "It's also the reason I had a nonstop headache since we did that damn spell." Truthfully, the headache had been plaguing him from the very beginning, but the pain had been easy to overlook as he struggled to keep from  _exploding_.

Bela propped her elbows on the tabletop and dug her fingertips into her temples, eyes squinted as she absorbed the information. "Wait," she said once more. "The future? So that supernatural disturbance in Florida that was temporal in nature?" Her eyes widened as a thought took hold, and she dropped her hands from her head. "Is that how you knew about my deal?"

Dean nodded. "We crossed paths a few times in my timeline, and by this time you'd already been dragged to Hell. So, you know, you're welcome." He looked down at his disappointingly empty bottle, set it aside on the counter.

Bela's face pinched tightly like she just swallowed a whole lemon. She shoved up from the table, sending the chair screeching back against the linoleum, and stalked into the study. She returned with a glass and large bottle of whiskey, dropped back into her chair without meeting anyone's eye and poured herself a drink. She took a large swallow then gestured for Dean to continue.

"All right." Bobby set his own empty beer bottle aside on the counter with a  _thud_ that drew everyone's attention. "Not to say I'm not tickled that Bela's soul – or what remains of it – is still intact, but we have bigger fish to fry."

Dean nodded. "You had a run-in with the witnesses already?"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "Earlier this week. Though we don't know rose them, or why." He gestured to Bela, who gulped another mouthful of whiskey. "Or why Bela's the only one attacked who isn't a hunter."

Dean frowned thoughtfully.  _If she was attacked by someone she knew . . ._  He shrugged halfheartedly, eyeing the whiskey at the woman's elbow. "Makes sense, I guess."

Bela lifted her chin, eyes narrowed. "How?"

"Well, Lilith is the demon who released the witnesses, and she holds your contract. One that is now almost a year overdue." He gestured vaguely. "If you still have that hex bag – and considering you haven't been dragged to Hell yet, I assume you do – she can't find you. Can't cash in on the contract and get your soul. But a ghost that holds a grudge against you, well, that's a different story."

"Lilith?" Sam perked up at the name, gaze darting around the room. "I've heard that name before." He frowned as he summoned the memory. "A few months ago, dealing with some witches. Who is she, and why would she go through all the trouble of raising the witnesses?" His eyes settled on the older hunter. "Bobby said it's, uh, a sign of the apocalypse."

Dean rolled his lips against his teeth, guilt welling in his chest for the part he'd played in getting them here. Twice. He swallowed thickly, nodded. "He's right."

"I'm assuming this all happened in your timeline?" Bobby asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Dean finally gave in to the guilt and the pain, walked over to the table and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Yeah."

Bobby nodded softly, didn't push. "Alright, so how do we stop it?"

A rush of air blew in from the entryway, followed by a gravelly voice that cut its way through the collected tension in the room. "It won't be easy."

Dean's head snapped around, glass of whiskey halfway to his lips. "Cas? What the hell took you so long? You stop for a drink on your way here?"

Castiel stepped into the room, his piercing gaze moving from one occupant to the next before finally settling on Dean. "Restoring you to your body took more power than I had anticipated. By now, I am sure my brothers and sisters are aware of what I have done. However, as it aligns with what they wanted, I can't be sure how they will react."

Sam stared up at the angel with wide eyes, looking like a little kid who was meeting his hero. He clumsily pushed out of his seat, hesitating a moment before walking over to Cas. "Oh my God—uh—I didn't mean to—sorry, it's an honor really." Sam momentarily ceased his mindless stammering, held his hand out to Cas. "I—I've heard a lot about you."

Cas looked down at Sam's hand, then gently grasped it with one hand and placed his other on top. "Sam Winchester, I'm glad to see you are doing well."

A boyish smile stretched across Sam's face. "Wow, I—I can't believe you guys are real. I mean, I hoped you were, and Dean had said you were, but I—"

"Sam."

The younger hunter whipped his head in his brother's direction. "Yeah?"

"Babbling." Dean rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to cover the smirk that once threatening once more.

"Right." Sam's mouth snapped shut and he released Castiel's hand, took a few steps back. Dean couldn't help but think that if the kid had a damn tail, it would be wagging a mile a minute right now.

"Fanboy much?" Bela said softly to Sam as the younger hunter sat back down, eyebrows high on her forehead and mouth curled in an amused smile. Sam narrowed his eyes at her, then turned his rapt attention back to Castiel.

Bobby studied the angel for a long, silent moment before breaking the silence. "So, back to the world ending . . ."

Cas nodded, expression somber. "Yes, the rising of the witnesses is one of the sixty-six seals being broken by Lilith."

"But why break the seals?" Bela leaned forward, wariness clouding her face as she studied the angel. "What does Lilith get out of this?"

"Think of the seals as locks on a door," Dean inserted, remembering and mirroring the conversation he had with Castiel ages ago.

"Alright. The last one opens and . . ." Sam asked, leaning slightly forward.

"Lucifer walks free."


	6. Remember Everything

_Dear father, forgive me_

_'Cause in your eyes, I just never added up_

_In my heart I know I failed you_

_But you left me here alone_

_If I could hold back the rain_

_Would you numb the pain_

_'Cause I remember everything_

* * *

He braced his hands against the sleek tile of the shower wall, mindful of the square of gauze his brother had insisted on fixing over the mess of rock salt-shredded flesh at his shoulder. The shallow slice from Bobby's silver knife hadn't warranted the same attention, but the hunter had still shifted guiltily as they waited for the bleeding to stop. Dean shoved his face beneath a steaming spray of water, allowing it to spill over the contours of his face and drown out all background noise.

Without the distraction of Sam, Bobby, and Bela's muted voices filtering through the bathroom door, he found himself locked in a claustrophobic battle with his own dark, confused thoughts. The conversation in the kitchen had come to an abrupt halt, Bobby declaring that if they were to get any work done, they'd need supplies. Mainly, some real, substantial food, and plenty of alcohol. Bela, in particular, seemed keen on the idea.

" _If you're doing a supply run, I'll come along." She pushed to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her pants._

_Bobby frowned. "Why?" His distrust for the thief was obvious in his tone as he drew out the word._

_Bela sighed patiently, as though she were being asked an obvious question by a small child. "Because, if we must save the world, we're gonna need more than whiskey and bon-bons. A decent Bordeaux at absolute minimum. Maybe a Cos D'Estournel." She strolled toward the front door, calling over her shoulder to Bobby: "And I'll drive. I'm not sitting in that metal deathtrap you call a truck."_

Bobby had thrown Sam and Dean a look that was one-part exasperation, one-part hesitation, and two-parts  _they'll never find her body_ , then gave in and followed her out the door, leaving them stern instructions to not burn the house down.

Their departure left Sam, Dean, and Cas standing in the kitchen, each lost in their own thoughts and concerns. Sam fidgeted for a few moments, sending a hesitant gaze between Dean and Cas before asking the burning question that he'd never been able to escape, no matter the circumstance.

" _What was it like? Heaven?" Sam turned wide eyes to his brother, and Dean narrowly avoided choking on a mouthful of much-needed whiskey._

Dean hadn't been surprised by the question itself so much as the abruptness of it, his younger brother seemingly pulling it out of thin air for no apparent reason. He blinked dumbly for a moment, and it wasn't until Sam had hesitantly fumbled out a follow up question that Dean realized why he was asking.

" _I mean, that's where I assumed . . ." Sam fidgeted again in his chair, gaze cutting across the table to where the angel stood on the other side of the room. "You . . . were gone. I assume you were in . . .uh, heaven."_

_Dean dropped his eyes to his glass, buying time while he tried to figure out how to answer his brother, what to say. The last eighty-two years in Hell weren't something he wanted to talk about—ever. "Sam. . ." He made a mistake then, looked up, meeting his little brother's wide eyes and found himself faced with a childlike curiosity the kid had never seemed to lose. And not just because of what he'd done, coming back. Even in his timeline, the Sam that survived apocalypse, loss, heartache, and death had never seemed to lose that pure, untiring hope that there was still good in the world. Faith that good things happened to good people, and belief that the world was meant to be, and could be fair._

_Dean dragged his hand over his mouth, and his mind detached, drifted to another life half-forgotten, the brief time he_ did _spend in heaven. "Heaven is like living your best memories all over again." A sharp, intense pain flitted across his chest as he remembered Sam's heaven, how he wasn't a part of it. But he understood now more than he did then: he and Sam just didn't put value in the same things._

_Sam nodded, absorbing the information before standing up, scooting his chair back with a_ screech. _He pushed a hand through his hair and nodded once more. "I'm just gonna get some air." He pulled open the back door but paused long enough to turn back to Dean with a lopsided grin. One that communicated_ thanks  _and_ I'm happy you told me  _and_ I'm happy you're here.

_Dean returned the smile with one of his own, one that stretched too wide and pulled too hard, and watched his brother go. He emptied his glass then set it aside on the counter, made his way to the study. A hand on his chest stopped him a few steps into the dark room, and he followed the arm up to its owner._

" _Dean." A strong warning sharpened the edge of Cas' voice._

" _He asked what heaven was like," Dean said roughly, knowing what the angel was saying without needing to hear the actual words. "Not where I was the past eight months."_

_Cas pressed his lips together disapprovingly. "That's a very fine, very familiar line you're not crossing."_

_Dean patted his friend on the shoulder then pushed past him into the study. Cas didn't have to agree with his choice, with what he'd decided to tell Sam. He just had to deal with it._

The water smacking his face was suddenly ice-cold, jerking Dean from his reverie.

"Dean?" came a muted call from outside the bathroom, "Foods here."

"Yeah," he tried to reply, but the word caught. He cleared his throat and cut off the water. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Whatever relief Dean had found in the steaming hot shower had been completely undo by the water running cold. A shiver wracked his body, but he knew it wasn't entirely from the temperature.

He hadn't lied to his brother, not exactly. What he'd done was so much worse. He'd confirmed a lie, added another handful of bricks to the foundation Sam had built up in his absence, the one where Dean had been safe, and saved, and not suffering.

He knew his little brother too well to think he'd be getting off easy when Sam eventually found out the truth.

And he knew them both too well to think Sam wouldn't.

00000

Dean sat forward on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees, paper plate in one hand and half-eaten slice of pizza in the other. The pizza was hot, with melty cheese and salty meats, and it smelled just as Dean remembered. But his first bite had turned to ash in his mouth, and what little he managed to choke down now sat in his stomach like a cold, heavy rock. It wasn't the first he'd eaten since his return, obviously. He'd forced down a handful of sawdust-tasting protein bars as he made his way across country to Bobby's doorstep, but this pizza was the first hot meal he'd attempted.

He should have known it wouldn't be easy; it hadn't been the last time he came back from Hell, and he spent twice as long there this time around. The smell of cooked meat, even  _bacon_  – it struck far too close to the smells and sensations he endured for eighty-two years in the pit. First time around, it'd taken a few weeks before Dean could really enjoy a juicy cheeseburger or greasy slice of pizza without gagging. It had been easy enough to keep it from Sam's notice, as the kid was far too preoccupied with the lies Ruby was whispering in his ear and the poison she used to flood his veins.

Another whiff of faintly charred sausage and pepperoni hit Dean, causing his mouth to water and his stomach to churn painfully. He'd have to watch his step this time around, didn't need his brother worrying senselessly about something he had no power to fix. Though at the moment, Sam was pretty distracted, having cornered Castiel against a haphazard stack of books in Bobby's living room. The young hunter seemed to have taken the angel's presence here as confirmation of his recently-dead brother's jaunt to the penthouse upstairs and moved right past it. He was bright-eyed, animated and excited as he took this opportunity to grill the angel about the specifics of every damn bible story he'd ever heard growing up while Cas patiently entertained the inquisition.

It should have been amusing, watching Sam fawn over Cas like this, but Dean was having a hard time appreciating the way things were when he knew the way things had been. It struck him like a blow to the gut, just how young his brother really was. So far, he'd been able to avoid some of the pain and trials his Sam had to endure, and the difference in the two was stark. The way things had originally played out left Sam with a fiery anger just waiting to be stoked, and that had been Dean's fault, of course. A result of Dean's actions, when he chose to sell his soul to bring his brother back, when he left Sammy alone and went to Hell. All because he was too weak, too slow to protect his little brother.

_I had one job. And I screwed it up. I blew it._

With a second chance he'd been in time. Sammy didn't die, Dean didn't have to sell his soul, Ruby didn't dig her claws and influence into the vulnerable spots left behind and fill them with a "righteous" anger. And most importantly, Sam didn't blame himself for his death. But the first seal had still been broken, which meant both angels and demons – all the major players – would be itching to get the final showdown underway, and there was still a good chance Lucifer might be released. If that happened, if Lucifer came after his brother . . .

He couldn't be sure how changing the events surrounding Sam would shape the man he had once become, the man so desperate to fix a mistake he was willing to jump into Hell to do it. If Dean had every wanted anything, he wanted to spare his little brother that pain and suffering. He wanted to protect Sam from what may come, from what once had, but if he did that, who would he be left with when the dust settled?

"All right, Sam, we get it," Bela interrupted in a loud voice as Sam started in on another question. "You're in the running for President of Castiel's Fan Club." She set her wine glass down on the coffee table and raised her hand. "All in favor?"

Sam ducked his head as his cheeks burned red.

"Great, now that we have that settled, maybe it's time we move on to the more pressing issue." Bobby leaned back in his chair and looked across the coffee table to Bela then to the left where Sam and Dean were sitting on the couch, ensuring he had the attention of the room. "What the hell are we gonna do about these seals?"

Bela took a sip of deep red wine, then glanced over at Dean. "What did you do last time?"

Dean's own gaze flicked across the room to Cas. The pressure on his conscience wasn't just the unknown fate of his brother, it was the weight of the whole damn world. Again. He took a deep breath as he set his pizza down, grateful for the distraction from keeping of the charade of enjoying it and wiped the grease from his fingers onto a paper towel. Before he could answer, Castiel's deadpan answer cut across the room.

"We failed."

The guy always did know how to suck the fun out of a room.

"How about we call that Plan B," Bobby inserted after a long moment of silence. "I don't suppose you two rays of sunshine remember which seals the demons go after first?"

"The first was the righteous man," Cas answered stoically, eyes pointedly fixed on Bobby, "followed by the rising of the Witnesses—"

"Wait – the righteous man?" Sam's eyebrows narrowed tightly as his eyes bounced over to Bobby. The older hunter offered a shrug.

"The first seal is broken when a righteous man spills blood in Hell," Cas supplied evenly. "It must be broken before any others."

"How does a _righteous man_  end up in Hell?" Bela tilted her head and gestured slightly with her hand. "I mean, isn't that the whole point in being righteous? Not going to Hell?"

Sam frowned, brow furrowed. "Hold on a minute. Castiel, are you saying that _one_  man is to blame for jump-starting the apocalypse?"

Dean's breath caught painfully in his chest, and he drops his eyes, couldn't bear to look at his brother.

"It is not blame that falls on him." Cas's low voice rose slightly volume, and Dean knew his friend was speaking him as much as he was to the others in the room. "It's fate."

Dean snorted and shook his head. "That's crap, Cas, and you know it." He looked up, locking a knowing gaze on the angel. "Fate can be changed. We did it plenty of times."

Cas narrowed his eyes. "Somethings may remain immutable. No matter how hard you try. Some things are God's –"

"If you say 'will,' so help me I will kick your ass."

Castiel stepped forward. "Dean—" He opened his mouth then shut it quickly, lips pressed in a tight line as his gaze bounced to the other occupants of the room.

"You two need a moment?" Bobby asked narrowing his eyes at the each of them in turn.

Dean huffed humorlessly and ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "God—" His fingers found the slim cord there and he stopped short. Sam had given him the amulet back from where it'd hung around his own neck. He moved his hand down and gripped the small amulet, his eyes snapping up to Cas. "I can't believe I forgot. We don't need to worry about the seals. Not when we can go right to the source."

"The . . . source?" Sam looked between the two, frowning in confusion at the amulet in Dean's hand. "What are you talking about?"

"God," Cas said simply. While everyone in the room reacted, he frowned. "But we already know the amulet won't find him."

"Maybe not, but we know where he is. Or, at least, where his vessel. I'm sure they share a connection, just like the archangels and their vessels."

"Hold on just a minute." Bobby pushed his chair back to face Cas and Dean better. "When you say  _God_ , you mean like . . ." He rolled his hand in the air, eyes wide.

"God with a capital 'G.' The big man upstairs who started everything," Dean supplied with a nod and small, crooked grin.

Bela snorted, swirling the wine in her glass with a roll of her eyes. "There's no such thing."

"You believe in all the rest of this crap, even him –" Dean pointed at Cas – "but not God?"

Even as he was saying the words, he remembered his own original stance on the topic.  _See, this is why I can't get behind God. If he doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. But if he is out there – what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds?_

Now, he was pretty much banking on the big guy to bail them out. Again. "Trust me, sweetheart. There's a God."

"And you know where he is?" Bela asked, eyebrows pushing up toward her hairline.

Dean tilted his head. "I know where he  _was_ , but it's as good a place to start as any."


	7. We Are the Waiting

Forget-me-nots and second thoughts live in isolation

Heads or tails and fairytales in my mind

we are the waiting unknown

The rage and love, the story of my life

The Jesus of Suburbia is a lie

* * *

They were on their way to talk to God. To God. Sam felt overwhelmed, and suddenly severely underdressed for the occasion. There was just no way to prepare for this sort of thing. Was he supposed to bring a gift of some kind, or an offering, when visiting God unannounced? Were they unannounced, or did God know they were coming? It seemed likely.

He fidgeted on the bench seat, smoothed a palm through his hair and tugged at the bottom of his flannel shirt.

The nervous movements drew the attention of his brother. From the driver's seat, Dean's eyes slid to the side and he huffed an amused but weary chuckle. "You look fine, Samantha."

Sam dropped his hand with a muted, somewhat embarrassed glare, then turned his head to watch the flat mid-western scenery as the Impala moved past.

After a moment, Dean sighed. "Seriously, man, relax. We might not even get to talk to God."

Sam frowned as he turned back to his brother. "I thought you said you knew where he was?"

"I do." Dean took a hand from the wheel and dug his fingers into his eyes, rubbing them roughly. "Sort of. I guess. It's a . . . it's a little more complicated than that."

It was clear Dean wanted to leave the conversation there, but there was no way Sam was willing to let this subject just drop. The subject of God. He was going to keep his brother talking without having to say a single word himself. It was like reverse psychology; he knew from plenty of experience that if he poked and prodded at Dean to continue, he wouldn't. But if Sam could embrace patience and wait his brother out, then Dean would eventually crack under the weight of the silence in the car.

It took a few miles, but then finally Dean exhaled roughly and said, "the first time we—" he paused for a moment, giving his brother a sidelong glance, "I met him, it wasn't . . . him. The big man. It was just this squirrely-looking dude named Chuck who wrote . . . stories. He didn't know it at the time, but he was a prophet. It wasn't until he found us again years later that he was God." Dean stopped again, like the whole conversation itself was making him uncomfortable. His eyes were glued to the windshield, just as Sam's were glued to the side of his brother's face. "I, uh, I don't know when he took over, or if Chuck was always . . ." He trailed off and was quiet for a long moment. "Doesn't matter either way. Even if he's just Chuck, hopefully the big guy will have some kind of connection to him that we can use."

"And if he doesn't?" Sam asked, voice sounding thick and choked to his own ears.

His brother's gaze shifted over to him for quick moment then back to the road. Dean stayed silent, choosing not to answer the question.

Maybe because he didn't have an answer. In that brief glance, Sam had seen something out-of-place swimming beneath the dark green depths of his brother's eyes, something that was hard to put a name to. The closest he could come up with was apprehension, but that didn't seem right. Couldn't be right. This was Dean's idea, and it was God, for crying out loud. If anyone could help them, surely it was him. And if anyone had earned his help, surely it was Dean.

Or so Sam could only assume. He had no other option, not really. Dean wasn't exactly a font of useful future information. Not unless it suited him. He sighed heavily, propped an elbow on the door and scratched his thumb against his cheek.

Dean once more glanced over. "What is it?"

How was he supposed to tell Dean that it was intimidating and frustrating just to sit here, knowing that his brother had all this information and experience that he didn't? That Dean could choose to share that information—or not share it—as he saw fit? In short, he couldn't, and he knew that. Between these apparently Lucifer-raising seals and having his brother back, the thought seemed pretty self-serving and insignificant. Sam shook his head, pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Okay."

The car fell silent. Too silent. It was weird that Dean didn't have any music playing. Sam expected differently for his brother's return to the driver's seat of the Impala. He'd expected gleefulness, loud, off-key singing with the best of Zeppelin, and frighteningly excessive speeds. But instead of relaxed and content, Dean seemed anxious and mentally preoccupied, his eyes darting to the rear-view mirror more than usual.

He died. Sam forcibly reminded himself. And not peacefully in his sleep either. It had been an agonizing process, Dean wavering in and out of consciousness and struggling to breath around a collapsed lung. There was nothing usual about any of this.

Dean was also paler than Sam would have liked, considering, and he kept wincing and shifting his left shoulder like it was paining him.

Right. Sam shifted on his own seat, guiltily. What better way to welcome the guy back than with a shoulder full of rock salt?

The silence stretched on, provoking all those thoughts running rampant through Sam's mind. There was so much he wanted to ask, so much he needed to know, but he was having trouble grabbing hold of one single question to ask of his brother, knowing he was more than likely to shot down anyway. In the end, with no gentleness or tact he blurted, "what memories?"

Dean blinked, hand slipping on the steering wheel. "What?"

"You said heaven was like reliving your best memories," Sam prodded tentatively.

"Oh. Yeah, right." His brother's fingers tightened around the wheel, and he audibly swallowed. Dean seemed strangely hesitant to answer. "Uh, it was Mom, mostly."

Sam nodded encouragingly but didn't speak. He scarcely dared to breathe, hoping his brother would divulge a little more.

Dean stiffly rubbed the back of his neck, then his shoulders finally relaxed a fraction, and a grin broke out across his face. "And, uh . . . hey, remember the fourth of July we burned down that field?"

Sam laughed as the memory sprang to mind, one of the last summers he'd actually had to physically look up to his big brother. "Yeah, I do. It was pretty awesome." Then, sensing a door had been left open, asked, "that's one of your best memories?"

Dean shrugged, and his smile faded a fraction. "I dunno. Except for shagging ass out of there before the fire department showed up, it was a pretty good night."

"Yeah, it was." His curiosity wasn't completely satisfied, and it was doubtful it ever would be, but Sam did feel better, having some idea of the remembered moments Dean had enjoyed in heaven. "I'm glad you had that."

Dean kept his eyes on the road, his fingers twisted around the steering wheel tight enough for his knuckles to go white. His chin dipped once in a noncommittal nod. "Yeah."

The motion made Sam frown, and he shifted toward his brother. "Dean, what—"

His brother's hand moved from the wheel in a flash, snapping on the radio dial, and Sam jumped as aggressively loud rock music filled the car. He knew what the music meant; for whatever reason, Dean decided the conversation was over.

Sam wasn't sure what exactly had prompted this reaction from his brother. It had seemed like a safe enough topic: happy, warm memories of the best times of Dean's life. But he knew his brother wasn't nearly as simple he pretended to be. The man had always been so much more than face-value, was constructed of layers upon layers of complicated internal workings before this trip back in time. Since then, everything inside of his brother had been pushed more to the surface, but that didn't mean he was any easier to understand or unravel. He was like a kaleidoscope. Just when you think you've seen all the colors and patterns he has to offer, everything shifts and the pattern changes, leaving you struggling to catch up with what's next.

00000

Sam paused at the door of the ramshackle house and turned toward his brother. "Do we, uh . . . just, you know, knock? On God's door?" The words tasted odd and out of place, and he wrinkled his nose.

Dean just raised his eyebrows and gestured for his brother to do exactly that, like this was a normal house call, the kind they'd made a thousand times over.

Sam brought up his fist to knock, but before he had the chance the door opened, revealing a shorter man with hints of grey sprinkled lightly through his hair. Dean had been right in his description; the man could certainly only be described as squirrely-looking.

He looked down at his watch then up to Dean with a frown, then shrugged. "Bit earlier than I was expecting." The man pulled the door open wider, indicating they should enter. "Don't mind the mess," he said, moving a stack of loose papers from the couch. "Working on a new draft." Again, he glanced pointedly up at Dean, and Sam followed his gaze.

His brother frowned, eyebrows tilting inward as he studied the man in front of him. Something about this interaction, brief as it was, was clearly rubbing Dean the wrong way.

Sam realized with a start that this was the first time since his brother traveled back through time that he'd seemed so obviously caught off-guard, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it was nice to know that Dean didn't actually know  _everything_. Nice to know that this particular element of the human experience remained intact, and his older brother could still be surprised. One the other hand, it had become a sort of comfort for Sam, knowing that whatever crazy thing was going to happen next, his brother had already lived through it, survived it, and had the inside track on the next hand that would be dealt. All he had to do was trust his big brother, and he'd already spent most of his life doing just that. He had to keep in mind that whole Dean's always made decisions with Sam's best interests in mind, that in no way means they've been the best decisions, or the right ones.

Dean tilted his head, raising a hand toward the man before them. "So are you Chuck? Or . . .  _Chuck_?"

The man's face remained passive and patient. "You wanted to talk to me?"

Dean shifted slightly, and aggravation flitted across his features as his question went unanswered.

"Chuck," his brother continued, eyes drifting briefly to Sam for the first time since entering the house. "You know in the future, you . . ." He rolled his hand in front of him.

The man – Chuck, or God – folded his arms over his pressed button-down shirt and nodded, a single, precise dip of his chin. "I know," he said softly.

Dean recoiled. "You know?"

"The moment your soul entered this time, I had knowledge of everything you'd gone through, and exactly why you were here." Chuck leaned back against his desk, arms still folded casually across his chest.

"Well, then," Dean said with a humorless huff. "For the record, I told you so."

"And humans stepped up," Chuck replied, seemingly unaffected by the frustration that Sam felt rolling in waves off his brother.

"Stepped up?" Dean moved forward, throwing his arms out widely. "We were obliterated! There's nothing left but crumbling cities and twitchy trauma survivors with a friggin' apocalypse hanging over their heads!"

"And yet," the man said calmly, gesturing toward Dean, "here you are."

Sam's breath caught slightly, a painful hitch in his chest. This was a rare opportunity to glimpse what Dean had been through. His brother had so far said very little about the world he had come from other than it had been  _bad._ He locked his eyes on his brother, hoping to hear more. Then the specifics of Dean's words registered, and Sam frowned. His brother said "there's nothing left."

There  _is_. Not there  _was_.

It wasn't the first time Sam had been hit with the brick wall-like realization that Dean only shared what he felt was relevant, when he felt it was necessary. There was so much Sam didn't know and might not ever know. Including how his brother felt about that world he'd left behind.

Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously as Chuck's words settled. He paled and shook his head, shifting back a step. "Did you . . ."

Instead of addressing Dean's half-spoken question, Chuck finally turned to face Sam, and his face softened in a warm, welcoming smile. "Hello, Sam."

"Wh—" he stuttered, surprised to have God's attention suddenly focused on him, trying not to choke on the pitiful squeak that tumbled pass his lips. "Hi," he managed with an awkward smile in return.

Chuck gestured to the spot on the couch he'd just cleared. "Would you like to have a seat?"

"Wha—uh. Yeah, sure." He moved almost numbly across the room and sat stiffly on the cushion.

Dean rolled his eyes, but Sam didn't know how else he was supposed to act. Or speak. And he still felt woefully under-dressed for the occasion of being in presence of  _God_. Who was, apparently,  _not_  the imposing heavenly form he'd spent his whole life envisioning, but a diminutive, rather scrawny man residing like a hoarder in a messy house with printed pages, unopened mail, and coffee-stained newspaper segments scattered across most flat surfaces. Regardless of his underwhelming appearance, his brother was giving God none of the respect that Sam felt inclined to himself, or that he would expect Dean to. Instead, he seemed off-put, even annoyed at by man's calm demeanor.

Chuck looked at each of them in turn before speaking and breaking the tension in the room. "I know why you're here." His gaze once more on Dean. "And I can't help you. I told you once before, I can't fix everything humans break," Chuck shrugged a shoulder looking a bit torn in his answer, "I'd just be enabling them, and no one would learn anything."

Dean shook his head, eyes wide and face still pale. "Humans didn't break this."

Chuck averted his gaze, seemed slightly shook for the first time. "I know what the angels did to you—"

"The angels?" Confusion clouded Dean's face.

Chuck lifted an eyebrow. "I believe she referred to herself as Alex?"

Frowning, Sam watched as Dean pulled his head back, as he stiffened and paled even further. Something in Chuck's words had stuck his brother dangerously, had rocked him in place.

"She was an angel?" Dean asked, face scary white and voice quiet but with a sharp, hidden edge. The sort of edge you could cut yourself on if you didn't tread carefully.

Chuck nodded. "She was. And I will admit, what they did was a bit . . . much."

"A bit . . ." The blood rushed back into Dean's face, colored his cheeks as he clenched his jaw so tightly Sam could see the muscles pop there. "I spent eighty-two years in—" He stopped suddenly, his finger's rolling into a fist. For a moment Sam wasn't sure whether his brother was about to have an aneurysm, or legitimately kill  _God_.

Neither was acceptable, and he cleared his throat, leaned forward on the couch. "Who's Alex?" he asked tentatively, wary of that razor's edge in Dean's voice. He looked to Dean, then Chuck, feeling completely out of place and like he was intruding on a private conversation.

Chuck pushed off the desk and took a step closer to Dean. "I know what you're feeling, Dean. Stopping the seals, keeping Lucifer from rising. The cards are stacked against you and the task seems impossible, even overwhelming. And everyone is looking to you for answers. It's okay to let other's help you, your friends, your brother." He gestured with his chin toward Sam. "You stopped the apocalypse once before, what's stopping you now."

Dean glanced to where Sam was sitting then shifted his attention back to Chuck, but he didn't speak.

Chuck pressed his lips together with a minute, knowing nod. He'd already had the answer to his question, whether Dean said the words or not. "Not willing to make the same sacrifices?"

Dean shook his head. "I would prefer to derail this train before Lucifer busts out."

"Dean," Chuck started slowly. "I can't help you."

His brother's eyes narrowed defiantly. "Can't or won't?"

"Can't. But I will give you this." Chuck raised his fist, turned it over and opened his hand, revealing a key. "Key to the bunker. I believe you already know where it is."

Another knowing look passed between them, a moment shared that Sam was forced to stand awkwardly on the outside of.

"That's it?" Dean asked finally, shrugging an unimpressed shoulder. "One key?"

Chuck stepped up to Dean, firmly taking his hand and placing the key in his palm. "Dean, do you remember what I told you before, why I saved you? You and others like you are the firewall between the light and the darkness. You will find a way."

Chuck moved to the other side of the desk, dropping his eyes to the cluttered surface. "Don't come looking for me again. You won't find me."

Sam jerked as the space the Chuck had been standing was suddenly empty. He looked wide-eyed over to his brother, standing in front of the desk with his hand closed in a tight fist around the key, head tucked down as he breathed harshly.

Sam stood up from the couch, took a hesitant step forward. "Dean?"

He jumped as his brother suddenly sparked to life with a jolt, letting out an angry growl as he swept his arm across Chuck's desk, knocking papers and an older-looking computer to the floor with a deafening crash.

Dean leaned forward, pressing his fists against the cleared desktop, head hanging against his chest. It wasn't frustration Sam saw in his brother's face, but desolation.


	8. Hurricane

_I can feel your heart hanging in the air_

_I'm counting every step as you climb the stairs_

_It's buried in your bones, I see it in your closed eyes_

_Turning in, this is harder than we know_

_We hold it in the most when we're wearing thin_

_Comin' like a hurricane, I take it in real slow_

_The world is spinning like a weather vane_

_Fragile and composed_

_Though I am breaking down again_

* * *

Dean wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel, drawing comfort from the familiar worn leather. They were only about fifteen minutes out from the bunker. He let out a soft sigh and rolled his shoulders, gave his brother a discrete, sidelong glance and wondered what was going through the kid's mind. After his outburst at Chuck's, Dean had stood still for a long while, trying to pull himself together and gather the sharp pieces that he'd accidentally let out. Picking them from where they hung in their air between him and his brother, shoving them into a deep, dark box to be dealt with later, when he was alone. Or if he could help it, not at all.

Other than inquiring about the bunker and receiving a very brief explanation on where they were going, his brother had been surprisingly quiet through the whole thing. Hadn't attempted to poke or prod any information from Dean at the house or on during the long car ride to Lebanon. Dean was thankful, honestly, because he couldn't afford to crack, not from exhaustion, frustration, or some selfish desire to unload some of the burden he'd been carrying onto his little brother. It wasn't because he didn't want Sam to know what he'd been through or where he'd been the last eight months. It wasn't that he thought his brother couldn't handle the truth of it – Dean knew he could. Sam would be devastated to find out his older brother was in Hell for eighty-five years and furious that it was angels that sent him there, but he could handle it. Sam had always been the stronger of the two of them. Dean's fingers tightened into a bloodless grip as he shoved that particular piece of information deep into the little black box in his mind, promising to tear Alex apart if he ever saw her again.

Dean wasn't questioning his brother's strength or understanding, it was simply that he didn't see any benefit in sharing the information. Talking about what happened might help him – or at least, that's what he'd been told a thousand times – but there wasn't anything Sam could do to change what happened, and there wasn't anything he could do to make it "better," or erase the horrific images from Dean's memory. Hell, Dean had  _traveled back in time_ and still hadn't been able to make it better. Telling his brother about Hell, about those unsavory things that happened in the future, about the awful things he'd seen, it would only serve to help himself. And Dean wouldn't,  _couldn't_  place that weight on his little brother just so he could feel a little bit better.

And then there was the information about the things  _he'd_ done, the people Dean killed, and those killed because of him. The future that had been obliterated because of his actions.

In the future, Sam had stood by him through the worst of it, the terrible and devastating. But  _that_  Sam . . . that Sam had been guilty of things as well. Had done things that hurt others in a misguided attempt to help. Dean had forgiven his brother for the part he'd played in various apocalyptic events, but that didn't erase what had happened. The path it'd set them on, the one that lead them to the end of the world.

Azazel had been right all those years ago. Sam, Dad, Bobby, his entire family. They didn't need Dean, not like he needed them. And he was afraid. He was scared that if they knew what he'd done, in Hell, in the future . . .

He'd been selfish enough in the past. He couldn't burden any of them with this. Just like it had been before, this was his cross to bear.

"That it?" Sam leaned forward in his seat, eyes squinting at the familiar gray concrete and bricked walls jutting up from of the overgrown hillside.

Dean depressed the brake, easing the Impala to a slow stop. "That's it." He shut off the car and pushed open his door. Once he had the bunker up and running, he'd have to move the car into the garage, but it'd be safe here for now. He grabbed two flashlights from a bag in the backseat and tossed one to his brother before heading toward the short staircase.

At the door to the bunker, Dean paused. He held up the key and looked over to his brother. "Ready?" A smile split his face, the sense of coming home flooding through his veins and warming him like a mouthful of whiskey.

"When was the last time somebody was here?" Sam asked, toeing a chunk of broken rock to the side.

"Sixty, seventy years ago?" Dean put the key in the lock and the heavy door dragged with a  _creak_ , opening to the chilly, tomb-like bunker. To home.

Sam brushed past his shoulder, his flashlight bouncing around the room, moving over the balcony to the floor below them. "Look at this." Awe colored Sam's voice as he leaned over the railing. "Ham radio, telegraph, switchboard. It's like a nerve center." He glanced back at his brother. "Who were these people?"

"Men of Letters. They even ran dispatch on their own group of hunters." It was getting a little tiring, having to explain everything. Doubling down on the memories he carried, the various hells he'd lived though.

Dean shined his light across the wall, locating and opening the switch-box. He lifted the two levers, illuminating the bunker's main rooms with a wash of muted yellow light.

Sam stopped at the base of the stairs and gazed into the war room, the library behind it. "Son of a bitch."

Dean trotted down the stairs, bumped his brother with his elbow. "Come on, I'll give you the grand tour."

There was stress building like a bomb in his chest, pressure growing behind his eyes and threatening to blow. But even so, just being here caused some of the tension to ease from his muscles, lending some of that recently absent fluidity to his movements as he trotted down the rest of the stairs and moved to the library. He was halfway across the large room –  _gotta get the mini-fridge in here pronto_ – when he realized Sam wasn't with him.

Frowning, he turned back toward the war room. His brother stood just inside the threshold of the library, gazing around at the room with a slack-jawed, awestruck look, and it brought a weary but genuine grin to Dean's face.

He left Sam there in a paralyzed stupor and moved through the bunker's halls. The place had that cold, deserted feel it had when they first arrived back in, the smell of chalky dust and stale air. . .

Thinking of all the things it seemed he was doomed to have to do again, he felt a little better knowing they had the added bonus of the Men of Letters' archives at their disposal. It made sense they would end up here, and it felt like coming home, but Dean hadn't planned on seeing the bunker again, just like he hadn't planned on dying or Hell or seals breaking all over the damn place. The bunker was a relic of the life and future he was supposed to have avoided. Not just the devastated world left in the wake of the Hollow Men, but other things, too. Like watching his brother slowly waste away from the effects of the trials, deceiving him with Gadreel. Those long, whiskey-soaked months they'd spent merely coexisting here, barely speaking.

He stopped at room 11. The door swung open with a low, long-unused groan, and he reached into the darkness, felt along the wall. The switch clicked hollowly, and the small, spartan room flooded with light from the single lamp on the bedside table. Finally, away from the ever-watchful eyes of his little brother, Dean allowed that persistent weight that had been pressing down on him since, well, coming back, to slump his shoulders. The strap of his duffel slipped down his arm, and the bag landed against the concrete with a  _thump_.

He crossed to the bed –  _his_ bed – and sank onto the thin, lumpy mattress. He ran his fingers through the dust covering the surface of the bedside table, like cleaning away the dust and cobwebs from the life he'd already lived here.

"Dean?"

He raised his eyes, found his brother had finally followed him. Sam folded his arms over his chest, frowned. "You okay?"

_Not even a little bit_. But he nodded, even if he couldn't muster up one of his patented  _I'm fine_ grins.

Sam seemed hesitant to enter the room, respectfully so. "This was your room?" he asked, taking it in.

"Yeah." There was another question in his brother's eyes, and Dean motioned as he stood. "Uh, your room was. . ." He led his brother down the hall until they came to the door marked "21."

Sam stopped short, looking back the way they came. "Why so far away?" he asked. He turned back to Dean with genuine, boyish confusion in his features.

"You moved a couple of times," Dean answered, forcing an even stoniness into his voice. "Guess you just got used to this one by the time. . ."

_By the time I died, and you were okay with us being brothers again._

_By the time I was fucked-up and left for dead by the Hollow Men, and there were a dozen apocalypse survivors living between us._

But those were exactly the sorts of things he  _couldn't_ allow himself to tell Sam, no matter what burden it would lift from his aching, straining heart. There was nothing Sam could do about a future he didn't live, just like there was nothing he could do about the eighty-five years Dean spent in Hell. It was selfish of him to even consider unloading any of it onto his little brother.

He sniffed, squared his shoulders. "Anyway, showers are that way." Dean pointed down the hall. "And the water pressure's marvelous." He turned to go, but Sam stopped him.

"Are you sure we should – I mean, is it safe to – "

"Relax, Sammy," Dean said wearily. "We live here. Lived here, for almost six years." He clapped his little brother on the shoulder, probably too hard. "We're home."

000000

They contacted the others on the way, earning a little push-back from paranoid hermit Bobby Singer, but with a little sweet-talking he was willing to come"check the place out." Castiel had offered to teleport them directly to the bunker, but Bobby predictably wasn't having any of that, said he'd get his gear together and drive down. Dean couldn't blame him; Cas's teleporting had always left his own stomach more than a little queasy.

Bobby made it down about two hours after Sam and Dean arrived, and Bela just behind him. The place was warming up by then, and Sam had already gone to work assembling a towering stack of thick, dusty books from the library's shelves. Dean directed the new arrivals to the now-open garage, so they didn't have a line of vehicles attracting attention out on the road.

Bobby let out a low whistle, hands crammed deep into his pockets as he surveyed the tall rooms, and Bela distractedly stumbled off the last step, heel slipping as her wide eyes roamed the bunker's warded ceiling. Cas knew the bunker as well as Dean did, so his attention was focused completely on his friend as he trotted down the stairs.

Dean jabbed a finger in Bela's direction. "No stealing—anything."

Bela raised her eyebrows, feigning the worst innocent expression Dean had ever seen, and pressed a hand to her sternum. "Dean, please. I would never."

He tilted his head, glared at Bela until she gave an exasperated huff.

She lifted both hands in the air. "I promise not to touch your toys without permission."

Dean held her gaze for a moment longer before deciding that was likely the best he was going to get from the career thief. He straightened, then wearily began pointing toward various doorways as he spoke. "Kitchen, bedrooms, showers, archive room and dungeon – "

"Dungeon?" Bobby echoed, eyes widening.

He smirked. "Yeah. Nothing against your panic room, old man, but just wait till you see it."

The older hunter nodded. "Good to know."

As much as Dean desperately wanted the others to disperse and investigate the bunker, as much as he wanted things to just  _slow down_ for a few damn minutes, he knew there were more important things they needed to deal with.

It was Bobby who leapt in headfirst, dropping a heavy canvas duffel onto the nearest table. "So, no help from the big man upstairs, huh?"

"It was a long shot to begin with," Cas answered. "God has always seemed . . . reluctant to step in."

"Great, so, Plan B?" Bobby asked, sitting down in one of the dusty chairs without clearing it first. "You said there were over six hundred possible seals, and only sixty-six of them have to break to raise the devil?"

Dean nodded, longing for a drink. Some whiskey – the good kind, none of Bobby's old rotgut – was definitely going to be on the shopping list for the first supply run. He sat down on the table, next to the leaning tower of research materials Sam had constructed.

"Don't suppose you know all six hundred-plus seals? Or at least remember which ones they're going to try and break?" Bobby looked between Cas and Dean as he asked.

Dean rolled his lips against his teeth and shook his head. "I remember some of them. The rising of Samhain, the death of two reapers, a few others."

"Might wanna start remembering a little harder." Bobby dipped his chin, looked hard at Dean from under the brim of his hat. "This is only the apocalypse we're talking about."

Dean dropped his eyes to his lap, pressure building in his chest at the thought of the monumental task in front of them, and the faulty memory that was further hindering them. His eyes moved to Cas, hoping the angel would have better luck recalling the exact seals they'd encountered before.

Cas straightened a little as the attention of the room shifted his way. "We didn't know which seals were about to break until the Lilith made a move on them. Even with the help of the entire heavenly host, there would be no way to guard all of the seals. Some will be lost."

"Is the heavenly host going to help?" Bela asked skeptically, her arms folded across her chest as she leaned against the table.

Dean tried to suppress a grimace, digging his fingers into the area below his knee as a phantom pain radiated through his left leg, right in the place where the limb both had and never had been viciously shattered. He dropped his hand away from the offending limb as Cas narrowed his eyes at the motion.

The angel pulled his gaze away, turning back to Bela. "Some will, others . . ." he sighed softly. "Many in heaven want the apocalypse to happen."

Sam huffed. "So, the demons want it, the angels want it, God won't help . . ." He trailed off, leaving the statement open.

"Sounds like we're pretty far up the shit creek with no paddles  _or_  a boat." Bobby rubbed his fingers across the space just below his cap.

"Maybe not." Cas started slowly, pulling everyone's attention back. "It may be more prudent to send what allies we can to protect some of the known seals and set our attention on stopping Lilith. If she falls before the sixty-fifth seal is broken, it  _may_  make it impossible to break the final necessary seal."

"Wait." Sam patted the air with one hand, frowning. "How would stopping Lilith keep the last seal from being broken? If there are over six hundred seals to choose from . . ." He let the question hang in the air, waited for one of the others to finish the thought.

"Lilith is the last seal," Dean obliged simply. "The first seal and the last seal are fixed. Lilith was Lucifer's first demon, and she has to be killed at a certain place in a specific way for Lucifer's cage to open. But only after the other necessary seals are broken."

"So if we kill her now, before the other seals have a chance to be broken . . ." Bela looked from Dean to the angel.

"Then she can't be killed as part of the final seal," Cas finished for her, nodding solemnly.

"Well, that's great." Bela clapped her hands together. "So how do we find her?"

00000

After deciding that killing Lilith as soon as possible was the best course of action, the conversation moved swiftly to whether Lucifer's first demon could even  _be_  killed like other demons. The last thing they wanted to do was confront her only to find out the demon-killing knife wouldn't do anything. So Bobby was going to contact other hunters, put them on seals as news of them breaking came up, and the rest of them would work on finding a way to kill Lucifer's first demon.

After deciding on a plan of action they had dispersed in different directions, Bobby to bring his favorite books in from the car, to supplement the large library the bunker already offered. Bela claimed she needed a hot shower, and to search out a room suitable for living. Cas had fixed Dean with a look before disappearing, and now Sam and his brother were about to head out for a supply run to stock the bunker, make it livable.

Sam navigated the winding hallways, trying to figure out which room his brother had disappeared into, and finally came across a door opened up to a poorly lit room with boxes stacked on shelves reaching up to the ceiling. He found his brother inside, flashlight beam bouncing over the front labels on the box, so focused on his task that he didn't even notice Sam's approach.

Sam carefully watched his brother for a long moment, not moving, barely even daring to draw a breath, thinking about the unexpected burst of anger Dean had displayed at Chuck's house, before he finally took a tentative step forward. He'd seen Dean cross the threshold between angry and furious before, when Ethan Pierrick sold them out to Gordon. But at Chuck's . . . that had been more than anger, or even fury. It had been devastation. Sam thought he knew his brother pretty well, but he didn't need to be an expert in Dean's tells to know he'd been banking on God's help.  _Hard._

Even with a relatively solid plan in the works, he could see the cracks showing through his brother's considerable armor. Chuck hadn't been wrong; they were all depending on Dean to point them in the direction they needed to move next. What seals were poised to fall and who they could or couldn't trust, because Dean had lived through this before. He knew what was coming down the line, had insight that no one else had. Well, no one except Castiel. With the angel's assistance, Sam hoped some of that weight could be removed from Dean's shoulders. But he also knew his brother, knew Dean would take the whole damn world on his shoulders if he had to, and wasn't likely to share the load.

Since his brother told them how he'd traveled from the future to stop the world from ending, Sam had allowed him lead, to share information as he saw fit, knowing the whole time that there were some things he'd never understand and things his brother would have a hard time sharing. He'd let his brother carry this impossible weight the way Dean wanted to, while only prodding lightly for answers to the questions that were buzzing in his mind, those pertinent details he needed in order to understand this newer, yet older, version of his big brother. But he didn't want to push – was afraid of pushing too  _hard_  and pushing Dean away entirely. But maybe that was where he'd made a mistake, because if he didn't push a little harder and force his brother to give up some of the weight on his shoulders, it was going to crush him. And Sam had so many questions.

He took another step forward, until he was barely an arm's length away from his brother, "Dean?"

His brother started with a jerk of his head, snapping the flashlight up and directly into Sam's eyes. "Jesus, Sammy. Warn a guy, will ya?"

"Sorry." Sam squinted until his brother lowered the light. "What are you looking for?"

Dean shook his head. "Nothing that can't wait." He started toward the door, turning off the flashlight and tucking it away. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah," Sam frowned. "No, Dean. Hold on a minute."

Dean paused at the threshold, taking a long moment before he finally turned around and faced his brother. "What?"

Sam took a step forward, "Dean, I think we need to talk."

"Talk about what?"

"About you, about what happened at—Chuck's."

Dean rotated his head toward the hallway, then turned back to him with a hard look. "Sam, we can talk about that later."

"No, Dean." Sam said firmly, rushing up to grab his brother by the arm and moving in front of him, cutting off his escape. "We won't talk about it later. You know that."

Dean closed his eyes once more and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, he shrugged and spread his arms out to his sides. "What do you want from me, Sam?"

"I want you to talk to me, Dean." Sam frowned. "I know there's something you're not telling me. A lot of things you're not telling me, actually." All the doubts and questions that had been building up and going unacknowledged tickled in his chest, bubbled up out of his mouth before he could tamp them down. "Like how you said you were in heaven for the last eight months, but . . . you've got that look. You're shaky. You're on edge. You aren't exactly acting like someone who's just come back from a heavenly vacation." Sam paused for a breath, but he couldn't stop the torrent of concerns from gushing forth. "And what was—Chuck – talking about when he said he knew what the angels did to you? Where did you spend eighty-five years? Who's Alex? Who are these Men of Letters and why—"

"Stop!" Dean threw his hands up in the space between them, but once again, it wasn't anger than contorted his features. "Jesus, Sammy. Just . . . stop." He rubbed a hand across his mouth.

Sam watched his brother fish for a moment, as if going through each of the questions he had lobbed before finding the safest one to answer.

"Shit," he licked his lower lip, looking away from his brother, down the hall, then shook his head and dragged his gaze back, "The, uh, The Men of Letters. They were this group of nerds who studied the supernatural, everything from caspers to the worst type of demons." Dean's eyes ticked upward. "This bunker is where they stored a lot of that information." Dean continued but didn't really look up at Sam as he spoke. "In the future, we got the key from one of them – our grandfather, actually. Dad's father."

Sam's eyes widened at this, but he'd done his part. He'd gotten his brother talking. Now it was his turn, and his place, to listen.

"He did some time traveling, and he was a one of the Men of Letters." A shadow fell over Dean's face. "It's, uh, complicated. Anyway, the point is there might be something in here that could help us. But we couldn't get in without the key. Which is why Chuck gave it to us."

Sam digested the information dump, shifting through all his brother had just said and sorting it out. "Our grandfather?" he settled on first. "Who ran out on dad when he was a kid?"

"Yeah." Dean's lips curved, but there was no humor in the grin. "Turns out he didn't leave Dad willingly. He traveled to our time by accident and . . . died in our time."

He shook his head. "Dad hated him, thought he ditched them. If Dad had known . . ."

"Sammy," Dean licked his lips, eyes darting back out toward the hall. "Henry, our grandfather, was supposed to teach Dad to be a Men of Letters. Apparently, our family had been in the club for multiple generations. We're, uh, legacies, of a long-dead group."

Sam frowned, remembering how his brother had said it'd been sixty years – at least – since anyone had set foot in this bunker. "What happened to them?"

"Wiped out in nineteen-fifty-something, by a demon called Abaddon. The whole group, as far as I know. Give or take a few members that went into hiding."

Sam nodded, but this was not remotely close to what he'd expected from Dean, and he wasn't sure how to take this new information that his family had been involved in the supernatural for a lot longer than he'd thought. It hadn't started with their little family unit, or even with the Yellow-Eyed Demon. This was a lot to take in. Through the haze of shock, he still recognized that his brother was deflecting. Steering Sam's attention away from the more personal questions he'd asked.

"Dean . . . " He looked at his brother – really  _looked_  at him and  _saw_ him. The surrendering drop of his usually confident shoulders, and the deep lines of stress and exhaustion pulling at him. Sam wished his brother would let him help, take away some of that burden, but that was Dean's call to make. He swallowed thickly, deciding to let his brother have this one, for now. But he had one more question he  _had_  to ask, even if he knew the answer would be a lie. "You okay?"

Dean shifted his gaze, dragging his eyes up to Sam as if they were weighed down by cement blocks. He opened his mouth, Sam could see the words  _I'm fine_ forming on his lips. Then he shook his head. "No. Sam, I'm not okay. I'm pretty far from okay."


	9. Soldier

_Quiet now you're gonna wake the beast_

_Hide your soul out of his reach_

_Shiver to that broken beat_

_Dark into the heat_

_Soldier keep on marchin' on_

_Head down til the work is done_

_Waitin' on that morning sun_

* * *

 

The dark was suffocating, and cold.

Few people ever realized it, but darkness had weight, and presence. Dean had never been afraid of the dark. He'd been cautious of it, wary of it, but never afraid of it. He'd been trained from childhood how to kill and defeat everything that lurked within it.

He'd once told Sammy  _of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what_ _'s out there._ But the dark itself wasn't the monster, and this wasn't like that.

This dark was an empty thing, devoid of life. It was simply there, burning cold and heavy with subtle purpose. It pressed in from all sides, prickling at his skin and working its way into his lungs, traveling through his veins, pervading his very essence until it twined seamlessly with the darkness concealed within his own soul.

Without warning, the burning cold of the darkness became actual burning, heat coiling through the air that singed his hair and crackled against his skin. And Dean knew with staggering clarity where he was.

_No, no, no, no._

He could taste the sulfur, the air was so heavy with it, coating his tongue and making him gag. It was a taste he'd never forget. It was Hell in all its glory.

Eight months topside stretched into an eternity below. He was on the rack, a place he was intimately familiar with, a place he'd never forget, where he'd spent every moment of every day for years. For  _decades_. Other souls had been pulled off, left in a sweltering dark corner to stew in the juices of their own rage and pain, bitterness growing until the combination of torture and cynicism twisted them beyond recognition.

But Hell had never been interested in making Dean a demon. It just wanted him broken.

Alistair's prized pupil had been charged with Dean's torture that night. He was creative and inventive, liked to try new things in new ways. That night, he'd broken Dean's chest open, spreading and bending the bones in ways they were never meant to be, pressing them to that delicate point just before snapping. It was agony beyond words, beyond sound, beyond comprehension _._ Internal organs were never meant to be exposed to air, much less the blistering, desiccated environment of Hell.

Dean greeted Alistair the next morning with his chest still cracked open, a gaping chasm within which his lungs struggled for air and his heart beat weakly for all to see.

"Good morning, Dean," Hell's torture master crooned.

Dean couldn't hide the physical flinch any more than he could prevent Alistair from seeing his heart beat that much faster from the mere sight of him.

The demon smirked. "Why, you're happy to see me. I've got your heart all a-flutter." He reached inside Dean's exposed chest, and before he could so much as gasp a protest, Alistair took his beating heart and squeezed mercilessly.

Dean couldn't scream. He tried, but the strangled noise of pain was caught in his seizing throat and lungs as pure agony crashed through his system. Every muscle tightened and bucked, arching Dean's back as his body locked up, trembling as it began to fail. The cruel hooks restraining him to the table didn't give an inch; skin and muscle tore as Dean literally ripped himself apart in his desperation to escape the pain.

"Oh my," Alistair murmured, awed, and he tightened his grip.

Even as Dean felt himself dying—again—he knew there would be no relief. In moments, he would be made whole once more, perfectly healthy upon the rack, to begin the torment all over again. He'd lost track of the days, had stopped trying to count them. He'd stopped hoping for some way out, a break, or even ten painless minutes in which to catch his breath.

In the beginning, he'd used music, singing his favorite songs in his head to try and distract himself. When that eventually failed, he used his best memories of Sam and of Dad, and even Mom to get through it. Eventually, every defense he had was twisted, turned into a nightmare, until there was nowhere – no way – Dean could escape.

He was doomed to suffer an endless stretch of tomorrows just like this.

_Can_ _'t do it. Not strong enough._

He'd never been strong enough.

No one was coming for him. There was no end. It never stopped hurting, and never hurt less. Every time he thought he had a handle on the pain, thought he found a way to finally surf the waves of agony, they changed it up, broke him a brand-new way he was wholly unprepared for.

_Can_ _'t—_

A gasp escaped Dean's throat as his heart stopped beating entirely.

That wasn't the end, however. That would be too easy a way out. He had to wait until his brain went dead, short-circuiting as it choked and sputtered on a lack of, well, everything that was necessary to being alive. That pain was primal, instinctive, and unlike any other, and far more effective than anything physical.

He just had to wait.

Dean's eyes snapped open on a gasp, and he choked on a cruel rush of air that cut against the back of his throat. Hell took its time melting away, but each blink brought clearer vision, until he saw only the cold cement walls of his room in the bunker. He sucked in large gulps of air, slipping back into the routine he'd adopted in the months after the Hollow Men shredded his body and left him for dead. He forced all the pain to the side, phantom aches and tears and breaks that that whispered throughout his bones, and focused for the moment on calming himself down, on simply drawing in a neat, necessary succession of loud, harsh, chest rattling breaths.

Nothing strenuous, just one breath at a time, in and out. Slowly, so he didn't suffocate himself.

Once his breathing was under control and his heart didn't feel like it was trying to rip itself out of his chest, Dean moved onto the next thing on the well-worn list: pain. Fortunately, this one was easier than it had been in the past . . . or, future. This body hadn't been broken and shattered, and the only pains that popped up were minor aches, and a deep throbbing in his left leg that seemed determined to plague him no matter what time he was in. Annoyance flared harshly, at his inability to keep the nightmares at bay, to push away phantom pains from injuries he remembered but had never technically experienced. Pins and needles tingled in his hand where it was twisted tightly in the blanket at his chest.

In the future, he'd given up on sleepwear during his extended stretch of convalescence. Everything felt to constricting, like he'd get twisted up and suffocate in his sleep. Once he'd traveled back and was sharing small motel rooms with his brother, the option to sleep without such confining clothes was lost to him. It would have been a dead giveaway that something was different. Wrong. He'd compromised. Sleeping shirtless but in a pair of loose sweats. It'd taken some time to get used to, but necessity had left him little choice.

Dean dragged his legs from under his covers and hit the light on his bedside table, squinting at his watch to check the time. 05:17. He wrinkled his nose. It was earlier than he'd planned but it gave him time to pull himself together and get some coffee before having to put on a show of being in control for everyone else.

He took the time to make his bed, another habit that had fallen to the wayside in the clash of his souls. But now, after everything, it seemed important to take the time to do something he had a choice in, that he had control over. He didn't get that option often. Afterward, he dropped next to the bed and went through a series of push-ups, then sit-ups, making a mental note to install a chin-up bar like he had before. Or hadn't. Not yet. In his time, the routine exercise had been an effort to regain muscle lost over his long period of bedridden healing, and a way to focus on steady breathing. To keep memories of dark, fire, and agony from returning from the shaded wounded corners of his mind.

The exact circumstances might be different, but he still was trying to hold the same damn memories, and sensations, at bay.

Dean washed his face in the sink, then went through the quick motion of getting dress, lacing his boots, and tucking away a pocketknife and silver blade into his boot before heading toward the kitchen. He winced as pain flared in his left shin. He did his best to ignore it, knowing the limb had never been injured in a way to warrant the type of ache singing through it. If he ignored it, maybe it would go away. At least, that seemed like a solid enough plan, one he'd used on all sorts of pain throughout the years.

Dean looked around the kitchen, now fully-stocked, and debated for a moment on making breakfast. He decided against it, as his nightmare had left a sour taste in his mouth and settled heavily in his stomach. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the counter and twisted off the cap, took a long drag in the hopes it would banish the last, lingering tendrils of his nightmare. After setting the bottle aside, he went ahead and put on a pot of coffee, knowing Sam would be up soon. Bobby tended to be an early riser as well. As for Bela, well, he was pretty sure the only time she was up before noon was to hightail it out of Dodge for a walk of shame, lest anyone dare shine something resembling commitment in her general vicinity. He knew the feeling.

He was surprised to find her still here with them after two weeks, and on top of that, that nothing had been stolen yet. Remembering that last time she offered to help them, the Colt went missing, he'd stopped her one night after some frustratingly dead-end research and asked why she'd stuck around to help. Her initial response was pure deflection and dodging, a tactic he not only knew well but had all but perfected himself. He understood where the instinct came from, but that didn't stop him from calling her out on in and pushing for the real reason. He'd never actually trusted her – and for good reason – and he couldn't allow her stay in the bunker if there was a chance she'd sell them out. The deck was already stacked against them, and he couldn't afford a wild card plopped on top of the pile.

It'd taken the threat of sending her out on her own for her to admit why she was really there, and he should've known. Lilith. Her contract was well over due and the hex bag would only protect her for so long, as proven by the attack of the Witnesses. Lilith was resourceful and would collect on what was hers. It was only a matter of time. Sticking close to three hunters provided some safety, but sticking close to three hunters and an angel who planned on killing Lilith and may actually succeed? She'd be a fool to walk away from that. Bela may have been selfish and self-serving, but she wasn't an idiot.

Dean turned to grab a mug from the cabinets, nearly jumped when he found himself a few inches away from his well-meaning but sometimes incredibly naive friend. "Cas," he started slowly, dropping his gaze to the side. "I know we talked about this . . ."

Castiel frowned, then dipped his head. "Personal space." He took a few large steps back. "Right."

He looked over at Cas as he settled himself against the counter and waited for the life-giving caffeine to brew. "So we really didn't get a chance to talk about it before, you know purgatory, Apocalypse 1.0, and, uh, God. How's this whole thing work?" Dean gestured to the angel. "Are you the Cas from my time, or . . ."

Cas shook his head, looking somewhat apologetic. "No. At least, not in the same way you are still the Dean of the future. I have some of the grace from my future self, but it's mostly the memories that you carried into the past. Not all of them, of course. That would have likely killed you. But I have the memories from the time you met me up until my future self sent you back to this time."

Dean wasn't sure how he felt about that, dropped his gaze to the floor as he considered the angel's words. He dragged his thumb over an eyebrow, looking back up at his friend. "While I'm glad that you're . . . you, wouldn't have been easier for you to just read my memories, like Gabriel did?"

Cas nodded. "Perhaps, but . . ." He hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath. "When I sent you back, I couldn't be sure what time you'd end up in. I wasn't shooting for a specific time, just as far back as my failing grace would allow. In the event I was able to send you back before we met . . ." He paused again, lifting a shoulder. "You're not the only one hoping to fix past mistakes with this second chance. I felt the best way to ensure I didn't . . . screw up as bad as I did the first time was to see those things I'd done through my own eyes. So that I would remember. So I would know what it was like to be human, to have regrets, and know that the end doesn't always justify the means."

Dean averted his eyes from his friend's perpetually intense stare. He understood exactly what Cas was saying and couldn't help thinking of the actions that had led them to this point in time. "Yeah, well, last I checked you didn't end the world."

Cas pressed his lips into a tight line then nodded. "Not for a lack of trying. Sam and I, we were responsible for releasing the Darkness."

Dean looked up at the ceiling and bit his lip, trying to tamp down the rush of memories, the feelings of utter defeat and helplessness he'd felt standing in front of Death in that tiny middle-of-nowhere restaurant. How he'd come so close to killing his little brother and fulfilling Cain's prophecy. "You should've let it go. Should've let me go." The damn Mark of Cain, that had been the start of all this. If he just hadn't . . .

"Dean," Cas started his voice firm but soft. "I told you before, I couldn't, wouldn't stand by and watch you become everything you had spent your entire life fighting against. I wasn't going to watch you murder the world. I regret the way things played out but – "

"Played out?" He shook his head. "Cas. the world  _ended_."

"We were trying to save your life, Dean."

"I had a plan." Dean pushed off the counter, taking a step toward the angel.

"Well, it was a stupid plan."

"It was my choice to make!"

"No, it wasn't." Cas growled. "You have a family, friends, people who care about you, and rely on you. Who would give their lives to help you."

Dean huffed, turning away from his friend. He braced his hands on the edge of the counter, clenched his jaw. He couldn't help but think of all the people he'd let down, all those he couldn't save. A whole damn world of people that would have been better off without him. "Yeah, well, no one else is giving their life for me."

Cas sighed softly. "You may not get that choice, Dean."

The angel was quiet for a long moment, prompting Dean to turn and look at his friend. He could see Cas had more he wanted to say but was clearly hesitant to approach the subject.

The coffee had finished brewing, and Dean grabbed up a mug. But instead of pouring from the fresh, steaming pot, he snatched up the whiskey bottle, splashed three fingers into the cup. He had a feeling he was going to need it. "I know that look, Cas," he said without looking up. "What is it?"

"It's Sam."

Dean's head snapped up, and he narrowed his eyes, felt his heart beat just a little faster. "What about him?"

00000

Sam ground his knuckles into his eyes, attempting to banish the last foggy remnants of sleep still clinging tightly about him. He stumbled slightly as he navigated his way to the kitchen, caught himself with a palm against the cool tiled wall of the hallway. It'd taken him almost two weeks, but he was starting to figure out the maze of identical corridors. Or, at least, how to get from his room to the kitchen and other main areas without stubbing his toes. He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that their grandfather was a part of this Men of Letters, that his family on his dad's side had studied the supernatural for generations. It was a lot to take in, and he had so many questions he wanted to ask with no one available to answer them. He'd love to pick his grandfather's brain, but knew he'd never get the chance. Dean had said some members might still be alive, and he wondered if they should try to track them down, after this thing with Lilith was taken care of. It would be a privilege to learn from such a group.

Sam's steps slowed as he thought back to the other things Dean had said when they first arrived at this place, when his brother had finally admitted to not being okay. Dean had predictably shut down after that, deflecting with jokes about dead men's robes and Sam's inevitable nerd-gasm over all the lore at their fingertips. But Sam decided it would best not to press his brother, knowing that those few words, that small admittance had cost him a lot, and told Sam a lot. Now he just had to figure out what he could do to make things a little better for his brother.

His ears perked to the sound of voices as he turned the corner that led to the kitchen and immediately identified his brother's. The second was still somewhat unfamiliar, but after a moment, Sam pegged it as the angel Castiel. He was about to enter the room and make his presence known when he heard his name and stopped short.

"Dean, you need to be prepared. This may all come down to Sam."

Sam sucked in a breath, then clamped his lips around the sound. He shouldn't eavesdrop on his brother, and he knew that, but there was so damn much that Dean hadn't told him and didn't seem inclined to. This might be his best chance to learn what his future held, or might have, once. Holding his breath, he stepped as close as he dared to the doorway and leaned against the wall.

There was a long pause, and he thought he'd been found out, but then his brother sighed heavily. "No," Dean said. "That's not gonna happen. Not this time."

"Does he know? About the demon blood?"

_Demon blood?_  Sam frowned. Were they referring to what Yellow Eyes had done to him? But that didn't make sense, because Dean was aware that he knew about that. He'd found out during the thing at Cold Oak.

"No." Dean's voice broke through Sam's thoughts. "No, he doesn't know. Seems like Ruby's been keeping her distance. Which is probably the only intelligent thing the bitch has ever done. I think Sam stuck pretty close to Bobby while I— when I was gone."

There  _were_ things, obviously, that Dean hadn't been telling him. Things he should have known and  _deserved_ to know. Things about him, about what he'd done. Maybe things that Dean was terrified Sam would do again. But instead of treating Sam like an adult and acknowledging his free will, his brother had made the decision for him. Anger flared in his chest, but he tamped it down, stayed still in the hall instead of giving into his instincts and storming in.

"Are you sure? He was able to conceal his activities from you for quite a while last time. If I hadn't—"

"Yes, Cas," Dean interrupted testily. "Thank you for that reminder." There was a sound of movement, someone walking a few feet before stopping.

"I'm just saying—"

"I know what you're saying Cas, and no, he hasn't been sneaking out on clandestine meetings with demons and going all Rainmaker on 'em." There was a pause before Dean continued. "The last two week or so since . . . since I've been back, he's actually been sticking pretty close."

"Dean, if he finds out – "

"He won't. And even if he did . . ."

Sam heard a faint scratching sound, could picture Dean digging his nail against the surface of the table or counter, a tick he'd bet had come from his brother's future half. A habit he'd developed, whenever he was about to say something that could be considered chick-flicky, of offering too much of himself.

He almost felt bad then, for eavesdropping on a conversation his brother intended to be private, and thought was private, but at the same time it was the most open he'd heard Dean speak since coming back to this time. A shiver of jealousy ran through him, that his brother felt he could open himself up this much with Castiel, but not with him. Sam worked to shove it down and returned his attention to the conversation.

"Sam's strong. He won't wander down that path again. Not this time. If he finds out . . . he'll make the right choice this time."

Cas sighed. "He thought he was making the right choice last time."

"Sam was pressed into it last time. Ruby . . . she swooped in when he was at his lowest point and pulled his strings like a puppet."

Sam wasn't sure he was breathing, afraid to miss any of the words, the details of his future, that were moving between the two. There was a long, heavy pause before Dean broke it once more.

"Look, man, we just have to trust Sam. Trust that if the situation comes up, he'll make the right choice. And, you know, realize that drinking demon blood and exorcising the sons of bitches with your mind is exactly as bad as it sounds."

Sam recoiled violently, narrowly avoiding smacking his head into the wall behind him. He  _drank_   _demon_   _blood_? Of all the futures he'd played out in his mind ever since he found out what Dean had gone through to get here, that thought had  _never_ crossed his mind. He didn't know what to think, what to do with that information. He couldn't even wrap his head around what he was hearing, knew he was missing vital pieces. Of  _course_ he wouldn't – he gagged at the thought – drink demon blood, but he needed more information. He  _deserved_ more information.

But if he approached Dean directly, would his brother tell him?

"What about you?"

This time, it was Castiel's voice that dragged Sam from his own spiraling thoughts.

"What about me?" Dean's voice was gruff, in that preemptively irritated way he had.

"Your leg. It's bothering you."

"My leg is fine." Dean's voice came out so forcefully, Sam wasn't sure who exactly he was trying to convince.

"You're limping."

"Pretty sure I'm just sitting here."

There was a soft sigh, like one might hear from a parent who was dealing with a difficult child. "You know the body you inhabit now has never suffered such an injury to that leg."

"Well aware of that Cas. Thanks."

Sam was pretty sure he knew what the angel was talking about. He'd noticed his brother kneading the area just below his left knee, like it was bothering him. Like it was hurting him. It happened often enough to take notice, but not so often to really call attention to it. But Sam had learned a long time ago to be on the lookout for the smallest tells of his brother's pain, since Dean tended to keep such things to himself until he had no other choice in the matter.

He decided it would be best to make his presence known right away, before his extremely private brother caught him eavesdropping. Sam turned the corner into the kitchen and cleared his throat loudly, pretending to have only caught the tail-end of the current conversation. "Well aware of what?"

Dean raised his eyebrows in greeting, then wrapped both hands around his coffee mug. "Nothing."

Sam had to wonder if it was actually coffee in the mug. Despite the early hour, there was a bottle of whiskey already sitting on the table next to his brother. He turned his attention to the angel, wordlessly asking for more of an explanation with a raised eyebrow.

"I believe Dean is experiencing psychosomatic pain in his leg, possibly due to mental and emotional stress," Cas said easily, like he was giving the weather or stating the time.

Dean's eyebrows shot up toward the ceiling. "Thank you, Dr. Phil." He pushed up to his feet, sliding from out from the table. "I'm  _fine_ ," he all but ground out. "And don't you think we should be focusing on the very real threat of breaking seals, Lilith, and Lucifer rising, instead of whatever made-up crap you think might be in my head?"

Honestly, it was a toss-up, Sam decided. Dean had been keeping so much to himself for so long, some of what he was carrying was bound to break through in some kind of physical manifestation. But his brother was right, and he'd been taking care of himself for a long time.

Sam crossed his arms, nodded. "Where do we stand?"

0000

"God, this place is dreary."

Dean looked up from the page he'd been staring at for what had to be hours. At the next table, Bela seemed to have given up on research entirely. She had leaned back in her chair, ankles crossed on the tabletop, and was surveying the library with a curled lip. The surface of every table was piled with books taken from the shelves, with files pulled from the archives, as they scoured the Men of Letters' resources for anything that would help them kill Lilith when they found her. It had been two weeks so far, and all they had to show for it were crossed eyes and snappish temperaments. He hoped Bobby was having more luck with the Colt.

"It's an underground bunker," he said drily, scrubbing at his blurry eyes as he returned his gaze to the aggressively small text. "What were you expecting?"

"I'm just saying, if  _I_ was going to construct a fortress that may very well become a stronghold during the apocalypse, I'd have gone with a little less…gray."

Dean blinked but couldn't get small words to come into focus. Honestly, he wasn't even sure what language the text was even in anymore. He shook his head, shoving the book away across the table. "I've got nothin'."

"Neither do I," Bela replied with a sigh. To punctuate her statement, she slammed shut the cover of her own assigned reading.

"Yeah, sort of figured that out when you started bitching." Dean stretched his arms in front of him, then slapped his palms on the tabletop. "I'm gonna get another beer." He stood and looked over at his brother, who never seemed to tire of research. "Sam?"

"No." Sam shook his head, didn't even look up from the pages of the massive book laid open in front of him. "Yeah," he amended, bringing Dean to a halt just short of the threshold. He raised his eyes, brows pulled together. "I mean, no to the beer, but yeah, I think I have something."

"You do?" Cas asked, raising his eyes from an open file.

"Uh, yeah. Think so." Sam turned the book so the angel next to him could get a better look. "Apparently, the Men of Letters had heard rumors of a weapon – looks like a staff of some kind – that could kill any demon, even a Prince of Hell. This says the weapon kills them instantly in a puff of smoke."

"Rumors?" Dean asked, crossing the distance back to his brother. "I'm guessing they never found it?"

Sam shook his head. "No. It says here they were never able to find it, but had good reason to believe it was real."

Bela dropped her feet to the floor and swiveled her chair toward Sam. "Any chance that book says what that good reason was?"

"Not really," Sam said as Cas dragged the book a bit closer.

Dean shrugged as he leaned over his brother's shoulder and squinted at the text. "Well, it's more of a lead than we had this morning. Any clue how we can find it?"

"This isn't a staff," Cas said, frowning down at a faded drawing that took up most of a page. "I believe this is the Lance of Michael."

"Is that a figurative Lance? Like Michael's sword?" Dean asked, feeling a chill as he did. When they first learned of that particular "weapon," they'd run to find it, only to find there was no actual sword.

Cas shook his head. He sat back in his chair, twisting his body to address the whole group. "No. Michael's Lance is the weapon he was supposed to carry into battle against Lucifer. It went missing eons ago. No one has ever been able to find it."

_Another dead end._ Dean's shoulders dropped. He straightened, rubbed at his eyebrow. "Great. I don't suppose you know of any way we could find it in, let's say, the next week or so?"

Cas returned his pensive gaze to the book, rolling his lips against his teeth. "Perhaps." He looked back up to Dean. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

Dean narrowed his eyes as his mind quickly thumbed through the sizable Rolodex of things he didn't want to hear his friend say, but if this was something that gave them an opportunity to kill Lilith before she had a chance to break the last seal, he'd walk through Hell. Again. "I didn't like my souls almost exploding, but here we are."

"I don't know where the Lance is now, and angels have been looking for it for years. But . . . " Cas hesitated a moment. When he spoke again, his tone was somber, and meaningful. "I know where it will be on November 21st, 2017."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave sacrifices for more chapters below and if you don't understand the date at the end go "MMMbop" your way on over Chrissie0707's "Digging My Own Grave" Then read all her other stuff cause why wouldn't you. She's awesome. Trust me. You can trust me. You can't trust me, but she is awesome.


	10. Castle of Glass

_Bring me home in a blinding dream_

_Through the secrets that I have seen_

_Wash the sorrow from off my skin_

_Show me how to be whole again_

_'Cause I'm only a crack in this castle of glass_

_Hardly anything there for you to see_

_For you to see_

* * *

"No," Dean said forcefully, his response so intense and immediate that Bela straightened in her chair, either her instincts or curiosity piqued. So intense and immediate that there wasn't yet a physical or emotional reaction to go with it.

That would come later, would settle heavy and unyielding – a phantom shearing pain in his left leg, an imaginary ache his right wrist, a relentless agony twisting in his very soul. But right now, it was a stern "absolutely not," a heated glare at Cas for having the balls to suggest such a thing. He couldn't give a shit what Bela thought. But in front of Sam, knowing what he knew. They were teetering on the precipice of revealing more than Dean was comfortable with, or capable of. This was delicate territory, and he was desperate to avoid it for as long as possible.

Not that Sam understood right away. He frowned and crossed his arms, shifted his weight as his gaze darted between the two. "I don't get it."

_Good._  Dean clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes pointedly at the angel, communicating in no uncertain terms,  _no._

"Dean—"

"No."  _Goddammit, Cas._ He didn't want to do this in front of his brother.  _Couldn't_  do this in front of his brother. He was hanging on by his fingertips, here. This was supposed to be different. Things were supposed to be  _better_ this time. The events from that time – those things Dean remembered with such heart-stopping clarity, that somehow both had and hadn't happened to him – he wouldn't be able to maintain the emotional dam if Sam started picking at it.

But his younger brother was too smart to stay in the dark, and that was inevitable from the moment Cas opened his mouth. A look of realization fell over Sam's face, and he lifted his chin. "You want to go into the future?"

Dean glanced sideways at his brother, threw a hand between them for emphasis. "No, he doesn't." He turned to Cas, said hotly, "we're not."

Cas sighed patiently, squaring his shoulders as he held Dean's gaze. "This is the only way."

"It's not."

The angel's eyes hardened. "You're right, it's not." He stood, shoving his chair back and moving to stand toe-to-toe with the hunter. "We can spend weeks – maybe years – searching for the lance, and perhaps succeed where legions of angels once failed. Or maybe we can fix the colt, and hope it works on Lilith. Or we can spend the next few months searching through books to find a way to stop Lilith." Castiel's eyes narrowed even further. " _Or_  we can go into the future, where we know where the lance will be, and we can bring it back and use it to stop Lilith _before_  the sixty-fifth seal is broken."

Dean shook his head, stubbornly refusing to back down or concede that Cas had a point, grasping desperately for any flaw in the plan he could find. "Your memory must be short-circuiting, Cas, because I'm pretty sure if we had found the Lance of Michael, I would know about it. And I  _don't_  remember that."

A shadow crossed Castiel's face, and the defiant hardness in his features faded. "Dean . . ." he started, in a loaded tone that Dean immediately decided he did not like. His eyes shifted to Sam, then back. "A scouting group brought the weapon back a few hours after you left on your own mission."

Dean frowned. "What – "

"A supply run. To Kansas City."

Dean didn't need to ponder the significance of the statement. He may not have remembered the exact date he and three others left the bunker for Kansas City, but the mission itself was forever ingrained into his memory. Chiseled into stone so deeply that no storm would ever wash it away. A chill ran up his spine, wrapping itself around his lungs and squeezing tightly, until spots danced in his field of vision and his ears buzzed. He shook his head, taking a step away from the angel as he struggled to draw a breath, more determined than ever to stop this insane idea before it could take root. But if what Cas was saying was true, he knew he didn't have any real argument to stand on. Whatever he was  _feeling_ , he couldn't allow that to stand in the way of the mission at hand. Stopping Lilith had to come before anything. Still . . .

He turned back to his longtime friend, shoulders slumped and gaze pleading. "Cas . . ." That one broken, whispered word held all his worry, all his fear. It was a plea and a cry for help, a flag waved in surrender. It was  _please, no_ and  _don't make me do this_. It was  _I_ can't _do this._ It was the sign of a man who just discovered he still had something of himself to lose.

"Dean." Cas tilted his head to the side, understanding but firm. "This is our best chance at stopping Lilith. We know where the weapon will be. If you arrive on the twenty-sixth of November, most of the bunker will be empty. All but a few will be out looking for . . ." he trailed off, but Dean didn't need him to finish the sentence.

He turned away, walking a few steps away from the from where the group was gathered at the table. He scrubbed a hand across his mouth, needing a moment to organize his thoughts. His throat ached for a drink, and his fingers flexed around a whiskey glass that wasn't there.

"Looking for what?" Bela blinked, looked between the two, her brows folding toward each other. "Dean," she said, and he reflexively looked up. "What's so wrong with November of two thousand seventeen? Why don't you want to go to that time?" She asked with none of the tact or concern that Sam would have.

A long, heavy silence hung in the room. Castiel watched Dean carefully, trying to gauge his reaction before he turned not to Bela, but to Sam. "November of two thousand seventeen is —"

"Cas," Dean warned, rotating his head back to the angel.

"—about a year after the Darkness swallowed the world," Cas finished boldly, giving Dean a significant look.

Sam frowned, confusion playing across his face as he tapped a fingertip against the table. He looked over toward the end of the table, were Dean had separated himself. "I thought you said you traveled—" he stumbled over the word "—from two thousand  _nineteen_?"

"He did," Cas answered for him, not even giving Dean the chance. "But it was in two thousand sixteen that the end began."

Sam looked from Cas to Dean, face paling, eyes widening. "So, then you lived in – in  _that_ , for three —"

"We're getting off-topic," Dean cut his brother off, not wanting to see the look his brother's train of thought was likely to drudge up. And he certainly did not want to keep talking about future events. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "If we're going to go through with this very bad plan -  
he shot a pointed sour look at Cas - "then I'm going alone."

Sam scoffed, straightened to his full height. "Alone? You're kidding, right? Dean, you said the future was a nightmare. It was so bad, you won't tell me anything more than  _bad_ and  _very bad_."

"I know, Sam. I lived it." He threw a hand out wide, and the motion of it, the physical acknowledgement of his frustration, seemed to loosen some of the weight in his chest. It was easier to continue, to lift a hand and say, "look, I know my way around there and can avoid any infected so . . ." He shrugged, the signal that he'd made up his mind, and the matter was settled.

Except Sam didn't seem to get the memo. "So does Castiel," he said, turning to the angel with a hopeful look.

Dean shook his head. "Cas can't go, not to that time."

Cas looked at Sam apologetically. "As soon as we arrived in that time, any nearby infected or Hollow Men would be alerted to my presence. The only safe place for angels is here in the bunker, and due to some additional warding, I'm afraid I can't travel directly there from here." He pressed his lips into a thin line, a frown tugging at them. "In fact, when I send you to the future . . . " he looked over to Dean. "I believe the closest I can get you will be just outside Mankato. You'll have to walk from there."

"But Mankato is at least twenty miles from here." Sam turned to Dean, face set, and he looked more like the brother Dean had left behind. "There's no way you can go alone. Not if it's as bad as you say." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You're taking me with you."

Dean swallowed. "Sam—"

"He's right," Cas cut him off once more. "With your . . . advantage, you shouldn't have any trouble avoiding the infected, but that doesn't protect you from any raiders or scavengers in the area. It's not safe for you to go alone."

Sam pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, a pointed look that meant,  _see?_

Dean tore his gaze from the two, looked instead to Bela, one last ditch plea for help getting out of this.

She jerked her head back and lifted her hands. "Don't look at me, sweetheart. I don't know what infected means or who these Hollow Men are, but I know I want nothing to do with them."

Dean tipped his head back, pointing his gaze at the ceiling and feeling like the walls were closing in. All he wanted – all he'd  _ever_ wanted – was to keep Sam safe. But this . . . this was about so much more than protecting his brother. It was about protecting himself, too.

"Dean . . . look, I know this isn't ideal, but—"

"Not ideal?" Dean snorted mirthlessly, locked eyes with his brother. "This is one of the worst ideas I have heard, in a  _very_  long line of very  _bad_  ideas." He sighed heavily and rubbed the side of his neck, knowing that despite his protestations, there was no way he was going to win this fight. There was no way to avoid this trip, and no way Sam was going to allow him to go into the future alone. His brother could be just as stubborn as he was, especially when it came to something he felt so strongly about.

"Fine," Dean relented, the word falling painfully off his tongue. He looked at his little brother, jabbing a finger in his direction. "But if you're gonna come, you do exactly  _what_  I say,  _when_  I say it. No questions asked."

Sam raised his hands in capitulation, nodding his acquiescence to the seemingly small demand.

Dean let his hand drop to his side, mind already racing to assemble a supply list, the necessary items they would need for what was likely to be a forty mile roundtrip – on foot – to the bunker and back, because it was doubtful Cas would be able to pull them back out of that time unless they were outside the influence of the warding. That amounted to at least twelve hours of walking. The wards themselves hid the area from the notice of both infected humans and Hollow Men, thanks to a spell Rowena had cast, but it didn't stop stray infected from wandering through, and certainly would stop any scavengers looking for an easy target.

A sharp pain shot through his left leg, and Dean curled his fingers into a fist, refusing to acknowledge the pain radiating from a place where such violent injury and damage had never been inflicted on this body. He really,  _really_  didn't want to make this trip. He'd rather walk through Hell, again, than go back to that time.  _His_ time. Everything he'd done, every choice and action and sacrifice made, had been to avoid that future. And here they were, willingly, purposefully stepping into those days. He looked over at his little brother and couldn't help but wonder if Sam was, in some small, achingly innocent way, looking forward to the trip, the chance to see the world Dean had so far refused to talk about.

Dean took a deep breath, reminded himself that if there was something else – anything else – that could be done to stop Lilith, then they would have found it the first time he lived through the apocalypse.

Resigned, he shook his head, clapped his brother roughly on the back as he stepped past, heading for the hallway that led to his room. "Get some sleep, Sammy. We'll leave in the morning."

"Dean –" Cas called after him, but he didn't stop, didn't acknowledge his friend.

Dean was done arguing. He was taking the night off, would need the time to mentally prepare for the trip back into a dangerous, desiccated, and  _literally_  God-forsaken world.

0000000

Sam stood on the threshold of the library for a long moment as the more turbulent emotions rolling through his aching head struggled to gain traction. He took a deep breath and pushed them away, restrained them below the surface. He'd been unable to sleep, tossing and turning throughout most of the night before pulling himself from bed long before sunrise and padding carefully down the hall past his brother's room, pausing only long enough to confirm sleeping silence on the other side of the door. To say Dean had been bothered by the thought of travelling into the future would be an understatement, and to say he'd been visibly shaken would be kind. Whatever they were about to walk into – it was bad. Sam got that, and yet he still, somehow, knew nothing of what this future really meant to his brother. What it had done to him, how it had shaped him. Dean had been keeping so much to himself, which Sam had allowed for the most part, doing his duty as the supportive, understanding brother. But he was no longer just a brother where this future was concerned, but a participant, a hunter. And a hunter shouldn't go into a situation unprepared.

Sam stepped into the large room and slowly moved over to the long table where Castiel sat, staring intently at the pages of the book in front of him, seemingly unaware of his approach. He was still trying to wrap his mind around not only the fact angels that were real, but that one of them was close friends with his brother.

"Sam," the angel said without look up, causing Sam to flinch, tearing him from his thoughts. He looked up from the book. "It's early."

"Yeah," he said lamely.

Castiel cocked his head appraisingly. "You have questions."

"Uh . . .yeah." Encouraged, Sam took another step forward, so that he was standing behind the chair directly across from Castiel.

The angel's eyes drifted toward the hall. "Questions your brother won't answer."

Sam nodded, wrapping his fingers around the back of the chair.

Castiel closed the book and leaned back with an open expression, gesturing for Sam to take a seat.

Sam sat, but hesitated once more, casting a glance over his shoulder in the direction where Castiel had just looked. His brother was a very private person, to the point there were many things Sam still didn't know about him. Not just about the life he'd lived already, but about  _him_. Things he couldn't even start to understand, at least not with some context. Anytime Sam tried to ask, Dean made it crystal clear that he had no intention of talking about it. Like he fully intended on keeping that part of himself separated from his younger brother. Knowing all of that, Sam was positive Dean would be pissed to know he was going to the angel for some of those answers.

"Your brother is sleeping," Castiel said, unprovoked, as if hearing his thoughts.

Sam reacted, tilting his head with a frown.

Castiel shook his head. "While I can, I did not read your thoughts."

"Then how . . ."

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You forget, Sam, that it wasn't just Dean that I spent many years with. I know you just as well as I know him."

"Oh." Sam tightened his fingers around the arms of the chair, swallowing uneasily. That was a difficult thing to hear stated so matter-of-factly, that the angel knew him better than he knew himself. It still seemed like an unfair advantage, like having cheat codes to something that shouldn't have any.

"Your question?" Castiel prodded.

Sam cleared his throat, sitting up straighter. "Right, um . . . so you were there, right? I mean, you were with Dean when the world . . . " He rolled his hand in the air, unable to find the right words.

Castiel nodded. "I have the memories of the future version of myself that was there, yes."

"Right." Sam bobbed his chin. "So then . . . Castiel – Cas," he amended, trying out the nickname his brother so often used. "What happened?"

His gaze dropped to the tabletop, and he was quiet for so long that Sam wasn't sure the angel was going to answer the question. He had just begun to resign himself to the fact he may never find out what happened, when Cas started speaking once more.

"There was . . . a being. Amara. She was God's sister and she was very . . . upset with him, to the point she began to destroy all of the things God made in order to get his attention."

"Wait." Sam held his hands in front of him, eyes blown wide. "God really had a sister?" Dean had said something about that once, when Sam had pestered him for  _anything_ about the future, but he'd just figured his brother had been screwing with him, blowing him off.

Cas nodded. "She was with him in the beginning, before creation, and he and his archangels locked her away."

Sam leaned back in his chair, stumped. Not even five minutes into the conversation his head was already spinning with the implications of what he was hearing. The magnitude of what his brother had been through, remembered, and was forced to carry with him. He shoved the thoughts aside for the moment but resolved to come back to them later when he could really consider them. "So,  _she_  destroyed the future?"

"No. Toward the end, she unleashed a Darkness that's only purpose was to destroy what God had made."

"Dean said a couple thousand people were still alive." Sam swallowed. "How did they . . . how did we make it out?"

"The Darkness hit so fast and hard that survival was simply a matter of being in the correct place at the correct time. You and I were here in the bunker, and others . . ." Cas paused, his gaze narrowing a fraction, like he was seeing something not there. "It didn't stop there. After Amara was . . . gone, the Darkness didn't leave. It evolved into something more. Eventually, we started calling it the Hollow Men."

There it was, that ominous term his brother had used, as recently as hours ago. "What were they?" Sam asked, feeling frozen and terrified of the angel's answer.

"They didn't kill everyone they touched," Cas said, in lieu of an answer. "Some suffered a far worse fate. Some were infected with the Darkness, twisted and changed until they were nothing more than mindless servants of the Hollow Men, spreading the infection until there were only a few thousand humans left."

"What about other . . . uh, angels?" Sam leaned forward, placing his forearms on the table. He'd sat down under the guise of asking one question of Castiel but couldn't seem to quench his thirst for information.

Cas stared down at his hands. "After Amara, the Hollow Men hunted down and killed every angel they could find. I don't know how many, if any, of my brothers and sisters survived."

"Oh." Sam was silent for a moment, taking in all the information, letting it settle in his mind before asking, "The Hollow Men – they destroyed everything? You said they were the Darkness, but that they evolved. I'm not sure I . . ."

"We don't know much about what they eventually became," Cas said with a sigh. "To our knowledge, only one person has ever come face-to-face with the Hollow Men and made it back out the same as they were before."

"Who?" Sam asked, though he had a feeling he knew the answer already.

"Your brother," Castiel confirmed. "All others were ripped apart, or infected. Your brother is the only person to see them, and live. He didn't talk about it much, would only say they were of a hive mind and there was no reasoning with them, even if we cared to try."

Sam swallowed thickly. His heart beat wildly and he struggled to wrap his mind around . . .  _everything._  He was having a hard time even imagining the hell they must have gone through. Lived through. A question formed in his mind, and he glanced up at the angel. "But . . . if everyone else was killed or turned into . . . was infected by the Darkness, how did Dean make it out whole?"

Cas narrowed his eyes slightly, offered nothing more than a slight shake of his head. "That, I'm afraid, is a story you'll have to get from Dean."

He bobbed his head, knew he was dangerously close to crossing a line. "What about – " he started, but bit his lip. There were questions he wanted to ask, and then there were questions he  _needed_ to ask. But to do so now would mean having to admit to one of those lines he'd already crossed.

"Sam?"

"I, uh, might have overheard more of your conversation with Dean the other morning than I . . ." Sam's cheeks burned.

The angel sighed. "I thought maybe you had."

"You said something about me." Sam uncomfortably shifted in his seat. "And demon blood."

Castiel shook his head forcefully. "That, I can't discuss with you, Sam."

"But I'm just asking about me," he persisted, leaning forward over the table. "This doesn't have anything to do with Dean, or that future. I just need to – "

"Sam." Cas looked around the room pensively, then settled his gaze on Sam. "Dean and I are in a—unique situation. We both have memories of that future, of events that transpired. There are things your brother did that he doesn't want to tell you, because he's afraid. But there are also things about you . . ." He paused, leaning forward in his chair and rubbing a palm over his chin. "Let's say you're standing at the start of a maze that's filled with traps. I know where all those traps are and could tell you the path of safety that will get you to the other side. But instead, I walk alongside you, and nudge you sometimes in the correct direction. But ultimately, I let you find your own way, help you fix what damage may be caused by the traps you inadvertently set off."

Sam clutched his hands together in his lap, listening intently.

"By the time you finish the maze," Castiel continued, "you've learned that you can trust me to help you when you need it, but more importantly, you have learned how to avoid the traps on your own. If I lead you through, pointing out every trap before you encountered it, you will have learned nothing except to depend solely on me to guide you in the right direction."

Sam's breath hitched, and he pressed his lips together to keep the anxious sound from escaping. Clearly, whatever this demon blood "trap" was, it was a step in the wrong direction.

"Sam, Dean hasn't told these things because he doesn't trust you. He hasn't told you them because he does trust you." Castiel's gaze grew intense and meaningful. "He trusts you to do the right thing."

_This time_ , Sam finished in his mind, the implications leaving him cold. He nodded stiffly and pushed up from the table, thoughts and emotions running rampant in his mind, needing to be organized and filed before he could decide what to do with them. Before he could process them and figure out what - if anything - needed to come next. He stopped mid-step as another question fought through the melee and floated to the surface. "Hey, why . . ." He hesitated, not wanting to continue his endless barrage of questions, not wanting to appear needy and ignorant to Castiel, an angel. But this one wasn't a question, more a curiosity, "Why call them the Hollow Men?" It seemed an ominous, but odd name for something that evolved from darkness.

Cas rolled his lips against his teeth then looked up at Sam. "It was Dean's idea. There is a poem of the same name by T.S. Eliot. The last lines, in particular, stood out to him."

Sam vaguely remembered the poem and was sure he knew where Cas was going but he felt a cold pit settle in his stomach all the same.

"This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suuup. If ya'll haven't read Chrissie0707's "Digging My Own Grave" You should do that and then "For What It's Worth." The next following chapters will make sense without them, but it'll give you a better understanding on what's about to happen. Also they are amazingly written. Chrissie0707 is awesome.
> 
> For those of you who have read those stories, you should know there is a story in progress that gaps the space between those two stories tentatively titled "Flecti Non Frangi". I'm not sure when it will be finished and on who's account it will be published, mine or Chrissie's but I'll let you know when it's done.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter and don't forget to review, it's the only sort of payment FF writers get. 💕


	11. Close Your Eyes-Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I'm a week late. I really have no excuse other than lazy. But, the plus side for you guys is you get a chapter now, and you should (pending natural, unnatural, preternatural, or supernatural events) get another chapter this weekend. A few reviewers had asked about Jody so . . . you are welcome! 💕
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter and like always don't forget to tip your author and leave a review on your way out and have a very merry happy holiday!

_Show me where it all begins_

_As I watch this world divide_

_Hope will guide you to the end_

_And there will be no last goodbye_

_For all live and die_

_Leave it all behind_

* * *

When a distress call came in, Dean was usually the one to respond.

The first few times a team was in trouble, he and his brother went together, with two or three other hunters as backup. But as they brought more people into the bunker, they grudgingly understood that one of them would always need to stay behind. Someone had to take charge and manage the rest of the teams, protect the survivors for as long as they could. He and Sam were responsible for what happened, for the people under their care. They rarely went out on missions together because they couldn't risk losing them both, and rarely left Castiel in charge. Not because they didn't think Cas could handle it indefinitely, but because the survivors, soldiers, and hunters that had come to live there couldn't.

A caravan or supply run under attack usually meant infected were involved, and since Dean was the only one who could sense their presence and keep the rest of the response team from walking into a trap, he was usually the one to take the lead.

So, when the call came in from Jody, Dean sprang immediately into action. There wasn't much left in this godforsaken world that could make him smile or lighten the load he carried. They couldn't lose her.  _He_  couldn't lose her.

Sam, white-faced and achingly young looking, swallowed roughly and crossed his arms, put up a weak fight about staying behind. But he knew the score. It was just . . . it was  _Jody._

Dean grabbed a small arsenal, gathered four of the most capable hunters and soldiers in the bunker, and was on the road within twenty minutes. When they arrived at the last known location of the caravan, it was like driving into a war zone. There was a jackknifed SUV angled in the road, doors flung open and smoke still billowing from beneath the crumpled hood, and bodies. The others in the Jeep tensed, following his lead as he slowly, silently slipped from behind the wheel and out of the vehicle, assault rifle raised and at the ready.

An obvious sense of death hung all around them. Some of the dead around them were members of the caravan that had been headed for the safety of the bunker, some were the infected who'd ambushed them. A chill dropped down Dean's spine as he moved forward, but there was no unearthly, frigid vice around his lungs, only a faint itch under his skin, more than likely a sign of a single infected somewhere on the outskirts of the scene, breathing its last breath before joining the carnage that littered the streets.

He crouched next to the first body he came to, dutifully felt for a pulse. Not finding one, he dropped his head, took on the weight of another life lost on his watch. Because of his choices.

Dean sensed the others hovering behind him, waiting, always waiting. For him to give the next order, to make the next call, to offer the all-clear. The weight of expectation was crushing. He wasn't sure how much longer he could do this. "Fan out, look for survivors," he said as he stood, voice choked and thick. "We're losing daylight."

The others broke off, ventured along the side of the road and checked the deep ditch that dropped off the edge of the gravel berm. Dean surveyed the area with a narrowed gaze, spotted outstretched legs on the other side of a truck, dirt-streaked jeans and boots that had been through the wringer.

_Jody._

Heart pounding, fingers tensing around the rifle, he rushed around the bed of the pick-up and found her propped up against the rear wheel, arms flopped at her sides like they weighed too damn much.

Still, she smiled when she saw him, fine lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes. "Hey, the cavalry's here."

Dean's shoulders slumped with relief. "Jody—" His gaze landed on the blood at her left shoulder, the tear in her jacket. He dropped to his knees at her side, thumbed the safety as he set the gun against the pavement and moved immediately to find something to stop the bleeding well enough to transport her back to the bunker. They were six hours out, at least, but if he could just—

His breath hitched, and his hands froze, hovering uselessly. The tear in the fabric of her canvas jacket wasn't from a bullet or blade, but from teeth, and that itch under Dean's skin turned into a cold thrum as his eyes found the faint trace of black—of Darkness—creeping into the veins on the side of her neck. Then he noticed the pistol lying just out of her reach.

Jody swallowed, then coughed thickly. "Looks like you got here just in time."

"Jody . . ."

"It's okay, Dean." She winced, biting back a gasp as she shoved herself up straighter against the tire.

He hesitated, scrubbed a hand over his mouth and refused to look her in the eyes.

"Dean," she said firmly, drawing his reluctant gaze. "I can feel it. You have to."

"Jody, you . . . you know what will happen when you . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't say the word.

"I know." Her voice was steady and strong, as she had always been. "But even that's better than becoming—" she jutted her chin in the direction of a body laying not too far from them. One of them.  _Infected_.

She was right, and he knew that. But still . . .

"Jody, I'm so sorry." Dean's voice cracked, barely above a whisper.

She smiled, weary and sad and resigned, raised her hand and laid it against his stubbled cheek, trying to offer him comfort and reassurance. Something that was so often missing from this life. "It's okay, Dean."

He clenched his jaw and pulled himself to his feet. He lifted the gun, finger resting against a trigger it would take all the strength he could muster to pull.

She closed her eyes with a nod. "It's okay."

Dean snapped violently awake as a gunshot echoed through his mind. He choked on the cry lodged in his throat, jackknifing up in bed and swinging his legs over the side of the mattress, lungs heaving so hard he was afraid he'd throw up or pass out. He leaned forward, fingers turning white as they dug into the bedding, and forcefully pushed away the nightmare, the emotions, his body's apparent instinct to turn itself inside out, and concentrated on breathing before anything else.

It took him longer than usual, but slowly, he felt himself slip back into the practiced routine, allowing everything else to be forced down into its little box in his mind. Once the images and emotions were contained, he took one more deep breath, then wiped a palmful of cool sweat from his face and grabbed the packed duffel sitting at the foot of his bed. He'd loaded up the bag the night before with things they'd need for this trip, things he'd need to keep Sam safe as they made their way from the drop point to the bunker. He changed clothes quickly, splashed some cold water over his still-pale face, and headed out of his room to find the others.

"You wanna do what?" Bobby's incredulous voice bounced down the hallway as Dean approached.

"I know it's—"

"Asinine?" the older hunter cut Sam off.

Sam sighed heavily, a weighty exhale audible from outside the room. "Dangerous," he corrected. "But currently, it's the best shot we have."

There was another heavy sigh, this time from Bobby. "I didn't say it wasn't." Then a pause, as Dean reached the threshold of the library. "What's your brother have to say about this?"

"Dean is reluctant to return to that particular date." Cas answered for Sam, glancing over to the doorway as Dean entered the room. "I believe he feels the plan is . . . reckless."

Dean joined the three of them where they gathered around one of the wide tables. "If you don't like 'reckless,' I could use 'insouciant,'" Dean shot back in Cas' direction, dropping his duffel onto the tabletop with a  _thud_. He turned to the older hunter, a man whose opinion might have once been enough to keep Dean rooted in this time. But Lilith had to be stopped – he  _needed_ it done. "It's not the best plan. Hell, I would consider it one of the worst plans I've heard and, trust me—" He gave a sidelong glance to Cas "—I've been a part of a lot of terrible plans. But the seals are breaking, we only have so much time to waste before the sixty-fifth seal breaks, and we lose this chance."

Bobby pressed his lips into a fine line, like he was considering the words, but they left a sour taste in his mind. "If you take this lance from the future, wouldn't that screw things up for them there?"

Cas shook his head. "In the future, we never had any need for the weapon. Its sole purpose was to destroy demons and take down Lucifer in the final battle."

"Then why go after it?" Sam asked, eyes curious and ravenous for more information of this future. "If the lance wasn't going to help . . ."

"We didn't." Cas paused, looking down at the table as if carefully considering his words. "At least, we weren't looking for the lance specifically. We'd found reference to one of the princes of Hell, and a location where he was believed to be living."

"Prince of hell?" Bobby's eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his cap. "Hell has Princes now?"

"Technically they were Grigori," Dean inserted drily, with a shrug of his shoulders. Sam and Bobby were listening with rapt attention, but he really wanted to get this show on the road.

"Four of them, "Castiel continued, ignoring Dean's input. "Though no one had heard from three of them since the first fall of Lucifer. Being Hell's oldest demons, we were hoping they could help us, but—"

"You were asking a  _demon_  for help?" Sam cocked his head to the side, clearly hoping he heard wrong.

"Actually, it was your idea." Cas supplied causally.

"My idea? How . . .why would I—" Sam gaped like a fish out of water.

The urge to laugh tickled Dean's throat, but he forced it down. Of all the sins they'd committed in their lifetime, working with a demon had to be one of the lesser of them. Depending on the demon. He scratched the back of his head and stepped between Cas and Sam, pulled the zipper of his duffel open. "Not that it matters. The Hollow Men destroyed them as well." Dean glanced over to Cas for confirmation, who nodded. He'd never actually heard the report for the mission due to his forced convalescence, but that alone told him the outcome.

"All right." He pulled two M4s from his duffel bag, holding one out to his brother. "Let's get this party started."

Sam hesitantly took the weapon. "Assault rifles?"

"Yeah." Dean wrapped the sling across his chest. "I assume you still remember how they work?" He reached over, tapped the barrel of the rifle. "This end toward enemy." A sarcastic grin pulled at his lips as he reached into the duffel and pulled out a magazine, tapping it twice against his forearm before sliding it in place.

Sam rolled his eyes. "I know that, I just mean . . . " His gaze slid to Bobby before landing back on his brother. "A bit overkill, isn't it?"

Given his brother's standing, it was an innocent enough wondering, but Dean's temper flared. He'd given his conditions for this mission, meaning Sam was supposed to do exactly what he said. He was supposed to  _trust_  him. This was a risky enough undertaking. He couldn't lose Sam. "What does infected sound like to you, Sam? Does it sound like a good thing?"

Sam took Dean's attitude like the pro he was. "No," he snapped back. "Of course not. But a shotgun—"

"Has an effective range of fifty yards with a dispersion of about eight feet that will disable a normal man, even kill 'em if you're really lucky. An M4 5.56 carbine on the other hand, has an effective range of five hundred meters and a maximum range of three  _thousand_  and six hundred meters, with a magazine of thirty bullets. Whereas a shotgun only holds two rounds, three if you reload with one in the chamber." Their father had made sure they had a passing familiarity with an extensive range of weaponry, and Sam knew all of this already. But Dean needed his brother to understand the seriousness of their situation, the world they were walking into.

Sam blinked, and Dean rotated to face him fully, momentarily ignoring the others. "You don't want the infected within fifty yards of you while you're trying to reload a weapon. If they get within striking distance, if they bite you, or scratch you, hell, if they cough on you the wrong way, that's it. No do-over, no second chance. You're done. Now." Dean punctuated the sentence by chambering a round, raising his eyebrows. "Any more questions?"

Sam raised a hand in silent surrender.

"Good." Dean nodded, pulling three more magazines out of the duffel. He handed two to his brother and secured the third in a pouch on his sling, then went to work strapping on a leg holster and sliding a loaded M9 into it. He hoped to hell there would be no use for them, that Sam was right, and all this  _was_ overkill.

He waited while his brother followed suit, stiff and business-like, and couldn't help noticing how much his brother suddenly looked like his older self. Dean felt a pang for that brother he lost in this mess, but quickly stomped it down. Now was not the time.

"You boys sure about this?" Bobby tried one last time.

"No," Dean said simply. "But that's never stopped us before." He grinned tightly.

Bobby raised a hand and sank into one of the chairs. He jerked his chin toward Castiel. "Well, while you boys are playing fetch, we'll see if we can't get a location on Lilith."

Dean nodded then looked around the library, nose wrinkling as he realized someone was missing. His posture stiffened, thrown back into that world of survivors living in the bunker under his watch. His responsibility. "Bela?" he asked, looking at the older hunter.

Bobby shrugged. "Said she had something she needed to take care of. Left last night."

Dean pressed his lips into a tight line. He didn't trust the woman as far as he could throw her, and after what she told him the other day, Bela running off to "take care of something" left him with an uneasy feeling.

"You ready?" Sam asked, eyes wide and face a little pale. He seemed jittery and anxious, but raring to go.

Dean knew his brother saw this trip in a completely different way than he did himself, saw it as an adventure, because he wasn't haunted by the reality that lay before them. A part of Dean – a huge, aching part of Dean – wanted it to stay that way. But it was a huge boost to know his brother would not only be at his side for this, but that he  _wanted_ to be. It made him feel that much stronger, doing this. That much more capable of doing this.

He nodded curtly, forced a tight smile. "Let's do this."

Cas stepped forward, "I can only give you eighteen hours."

"What?" Sam frowned. "Why?"

"well, the answer to your question can best be expressed as a series of—" Cas paused his brow furrowing for a moment before smoothing out again. "The supernatural in the future is unbalanced, out of sync, if you will. The longer you stay in that time, the harder it'll be to retrieve you. Eighteen hours is all I can risk. If I don't pull you out within that time, you'll be lost to me."

"What about your future self? Can't he . . ."

Dean shook his head. "No, for Cas to send us back he'd have to leave the warding of the bunker. Which would be as good as suicide for all of us." Dean turned to his friend. "Eighteen hours will be enough time."

Cas nodded once. "When you reach the bunker, it should be mostly empty apart from myself and two others. Find me. I'll know where the lance is. You need to be outside the bunker's warding in eighteen hours. Good luck," he added as he reached out his hand, pressing two fingers to each of their foreheads.

"Bend your knees." Dean said right before everything blinked away.


	12. Close Your Eyes

_Take the rebel from within_

_Now I know that I'll survive_

_Show me how to play pretend_

_As I watch this world collide_

_Fate will guide you to the end_

_And there will be no hope to hide_

_For all live and die_

_Leave it all behind_

* * *

 

Dean was right. He should have bent his knees.

Disoriented, Sam stumbled over unforgiving ground. Or, he thought he did. He felt like he'd been pressed pancake-thin, ears ringing as he struggled to inflate stubborn lungs and hold his footing. Once he caught his breath, he blinked hard, waiting for his eyes to the sudden shift in light, from the artificial, muted lighting of the bunker to the natural reddish orange glow of a setting sun. As his vision began to clear, he worked to orient himself to his surroundings, immediately finding his brother and nodding a vague confirmation to Dean that he was okay. Dean returned the nod tightly, then turned his attention to surveying the area around them.

Sam followed his brother's lead, though his gaze was drawn in the opposite direction, to the road that stretched beneath his feet. There was a small stuffed raccoon by the toe of his boot, the first, immediate symbol that someone other than Dean had existed in this future. He bent down to retrieve the small toy, thumb brushing away a thick layer of dirt from the stuffed animal's face. The toy was in surprisingly good condition, given what little he knew of this time, like it had been purchased not long before it was dropped here in the street.

He looked up, even more curious now as to the state of the rest of the surrounding area. The reddish glow from the sun cast an eerie look to the old cobblestone street, lined on either side by a bricked strip of shops with large windows. To their left was a storefront window with a display case that was surprisingly intact, holding wooden carvings of inspirations like 'love' and 'faith.' Above them, a boxy sign swung with a long creak, attached to the brick side of the building by wires. Most of the words on the sign were faded, but Sam could make out 'phar.'

On the other side of the street was another large storefront window, a display within holding nothing more than a simple wooden train, and a paper that read "help wanted' affixed to the glass by a stubborn piece of tape.

Sam rotated his head, narrowed his eyes. The length of street was empty save for a few cars parked along the curb, and two sedans left in the middle of the road, as if abandoned without care. There were no people, but also no real, visible, obvious destruction. No crumbled, ruined houses, no dead, no signs of struggle, resistance, or violence. Everyone was just . . . gone.

He wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting, but this abandoned, red-washed ghost town was not it. He looked down at the dirty stuffed raccoon in his hand, then up at his brother. "What happened here?"

"The Hollow Men." Dean said softly, thickly, his voice a harsh rasp that added more questions than it answered. "They were looking for—" He shook his head and dragged a hand down his face. "Eight hundred and eight people. Gone before they even knew what was happening. Before they had a chance to . . . "

Sam swallowed roughly. "Dean . . ."

"One hundred and seventy-eight of them were children." Dean averted his gaze, shifted the weapon cradled in his hands. "We never found out what happened to them, if they were turned or . . . or worse. We upgraded the warding around the bunker after that, to keep it from being detected."

"Smart."

"Sure." Dean lifted a shoulder, still refusing to look at Sam. "Didn't do these poor sons of bitches any good."

"Dean – "

"We need to move." He squinted up at the sky. "If we keep a steady pace we should make it to the bunker before nightfall."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Dean, you said the bunker would be a six-hour walk from the drop point. There's no way—" he cut himself off as he followed his brother's gaze upward. The eerie red glow covering them wasn't coming from a setting sun, and night wasn't slowly creeping up on them. The sun was positioned high in the sky, where it should be in the middle of the day. "What . . ."

Dean finally met his eyes, shrugged a heavy shoulder. "When Chuck and Amara . . ." he rolled his hand in the air, signaling more than he seemed to care to get into at the moment. "The sun started dying, turned red. Not sure if it's going to go out eventually. All the people who'd know are either dead or in hiding, and I doubt they're worrying about the sun right now." Dean turned down the cobblestone street, jerked his chin. "Main road should be this way."

Sam looked once more at the small stuffed raccoon in his hand. He almost dropped it back to the ground, but instead, something persuaded him to slide the toy into the pocket of his coat before turning to follow his brother.

They walked in silence for a while, the cobblestone underfoot giving way to a stretch of blacktop. They followed the road as it twisted past a squat brick building with a large pool that was now no more than a deep, empty, tiled basin.

The cracked blacktop turned into a dirt road after another mile or so, dust kicking up into the air as a harsh wind blew across the open plain. Dean hadn't said a word since they started walking. Sam gave his silent brother a sidelong glance. The man was clearly tense, posture achingly rigid as his eyes constantly moved from one side of the road to the other, like he was searching for something. Like he was expecting something.

Sam coughed lightly, clearing his throat of dust. "I heard what Castiel said to you."

"Cas says a lot of things," Dean said without looking at Sam. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

"About your leg?"

Dean came to an abrupt stop, flicking his gaze skyward. "Christ, Sam." He turned his head to his brother. "My leg is  _fine_. I am  _fine_. I swear, the next person who asks me if I'm okay, I'm gonna start throwing punches."

Sam held both his hands in the air but tilted his head slightly. "That's, uh . . ." he stopped, chewing on his lip and thinking about what the angel had told him just that morning. A thought that had been rattling around in his head for hours. This might not be the best time, but he'd be hard-pressed to find a better one anytime soon.

"That's, uh, what?" Dean shifted the sling of the assault rifle across his shoulder, gaze narrowed. "Come on, Sam, use your words."

"That's not all I heard Castiel say." He paused, trying to decide the best way to broach this topic, settled on the Band-Aid approach. "I heard him say that it might come down to me? And demon blood. About me, drinking it." Sam said it quickly, wrinkling his nose at the thought.

Dean scrubbed a hand against his chin, looked away. "Sam . . ."

"Cas said you won't tell me anything because you don't want me to depend on you to keep me on the right path, and you trust me to make the right choices." He took a deep breath, then dove in headfirst, hoping he wasn't about to get shot for his troubles. "But we both know that's not true."

"Sam . . ."

"No, Dean. Maybe that's the reason for him, but . . ." Sam shook his head. "You've spent my entire life trying to push me down a certain path. Trying to protect me. And I don't know why you won't tell me, but we both know it's not because you want me to do this on my own."

Dean looked away, gaze roving across the area before reluctantly settling on him once more. "Look, can we not do this right now?"

Sam frowned tightly and shifted his weight, ready to stand his ground and fight this one out if that's what it came to, but Dean didn't give him the chance.

"I hear you, Sam. Okay? I hear you. But we're in the middle of BFE, Kansas, out in the open with almost nothing for cover." He gestured to the empty, dusty fields surrounding them. "Look, I promise you, we'll talk about it when we get back." Dean lowered his chin, widened his eyes. "We good?"

Sam took a deep breath, calming the frustrated fire brewing in his chest, before nodding his acquiescence. "Yeah, we're good. But we are going to talk about it." It might not be the answer Sam wanted – or any answer at all – but it was a promise, and he knew his brother didn't often make promises he didn't intend to keep.

"Scout's honor," Dean said with an easy smirk. He started down the road again, silence falling between them.

It was a few hours of walking when his brother suddenly and noticeably tensed, his posture going ramrod straight as he stopped dead in his tracks.

"What is it?" Sam asked immediately. Taking his brother's lead, his fingers tightened around the grip of his gun as his anxious gaze roamed the area ahead of them. A large empty farmhouse stood on their left. A swing set in the side yard, broken, its seats hanging from loose chains. A picnic table was near the set, with dirty, deflated balloons hanging limply in the grass. The ground around the table was littered with smashed boxes covered in ripped wrapping paper.  _God,_  he thought, remembering his brother's words.  _Eight hundred and eight people. Gone before they even knew what was happening._

Dean shushed him without looking over, hefting the assault rifle he'd insisted on bringing, that Sam couldn't have imagined at the time they would have need for.

"Dean, what - "

"Shut up, Sam!" Dean snapped in a hushed tone. His attention flicked over briefly, and Sam saw something there in his brother's eyes that caused a ball of dread and fear to form in his gut.

It was like a switch had been flipped, and there was immediately something both hard and hardened in Dean. That same deadly, dangerous glint in his eye that Sam had seen when his brother almost killed Ethan Pierrick. He wanted to feel reassured and protected by this look, knowing that his brother wouldn't let anything bad happen to him, but Sam found himself feeling frightened instead. Of his brother, and _for_  his brother. This - this wasn't the Dean he grew up with, or searched for Dad with, or even the Dean he'd spent the past year with. _This_  was the Dean who'd lived _here_ , amidst all this destruction, and called it home.

Without a word, Dean grabbed a handful of Sam's jacket and shoved him toward the empty house. Sam recoiled slightly, surprised at the iciness in his brother's grip, but hurried across the dry grass as quickly as he could, with Dean never releasing his sleeve. They were almost at the house when three people, a young woman and two men, stumbled out from behind a shed on the far side of the yard.

His brother had lifted his gun and fired off two rounds before Sam was even able to properly register what was happening. The woman and one of the men dropped unceremoniously to the ground as a third bullet cracked the air, making its home in the remaining man's head. Sam blinked as the man crumpled, looking just like a  _man._ In fact, none of the three looked as though they were infected with anything. Not like the deformed, zombie-like creatures he'd been imagining since he first heard of the infected and the Hollow Men. They looked . . . normal.

The terrified pit in his stomach widened, as Sam was forced to wonder whether the three people Dean had just killed, without even a breath of hesitation, had even  _been_ infected. Sam turned to his brother but didn't get a single word out before Dean pivoted, pointing the barrel of his assault rifle toward the front door of the house, hanging off the hinges.

Heart pounding wildly, Sam's gaze followed. He didn't hear anything, didn't have a clue as to what had tipped his brother off to whatever danger he was clearly sensing. Then he caught it – a faint noise, muted but agonized, like the sound of suppressed cries. Sam moved toward the door but was stopped by an ice-cold hand on his arm.

Dean wordlessly pushed him aside and stepped in front, hopped onto the porch with his M4 raised and ready to eliminate any target that might be within the house. Sam shook off the chill left in the wake of his brother's grip and followed on his heels. The front door creaked as Dean pulled it open fully, swinging the nose of his rifle to the right.

It was a kid, maybe seventeen years old, pressed into the far corner of room, and he was clearly terrified. His thin frame shook violently, eyes wide in a chalk-white face.

"Hey," Sam said, moving to step around his brother.

Dean didn't lower the gun, didn't redirect his aim, but he reached out and grabbed Sam's arm, holding him back with a frigid, vice-like grip.

The kid raised his eyes, and Sam could see something akin to hope filling his eyes, the terrified look melting away as he took in the presence of his would-be saviors.

"We're not going to hurt you," Sam assured him, gaze darting back to his brother.

Dean didn't speak. His eyes narrowed, and his finger tensed on the trigger.

"Dean, stop!" He reached out and grabbed his brother's hand, sent Dean's shot wide. The bullet struck the wall to the kid's left, and he bolted toward the open side door. Sam took a step back, shocked by the unnatural coolness of his brother's skin.

Dean rounded on him, anger burning hotly in his eyes. "What the hell, Sam?" He elbowed past his brother and raced to the door the boy had just escaped through, scouring the area.

Sam's eyes widened, from the anger and the implied accusation. He grabbed a handful of his brother's jacket and yanked him fully back into the house. "What the hell? Dean, you were gonna kill that kid!"

"He was infected, Sam!" Dean threw out his arms, the assault rifle clenched in his right hand. He shook his head and pointed to the open doorway. "Now there's one more infected out there, and people could die because he just got away from us."

"Dean, look—"

"No, you look." He took a threatening step forward, jabbing a finger in Sam's face. "This isn't your time. It's mine. You don't make the decisions. I do. So, when I tell you to follow my lead. You follow it. We clear?"

He nodded stiffly, rocked back a step by the heat in his brother's tone. "Yeah."

"Okay." Dean rolled his head on his shoulders then hefted the sling of his weapon, jerked his chin down back toward the road. His scanned the immediate area one last time, searching for the kid, but even surrounded by open field, Sam knew it could take hours to find him, and they were on a limited schedule. "Let's keep moving."

Sam fell into step behind his brother, chewing his bottom lip and feeling like a scolded child, all of seven years old. He didn't know whether he was even permitted to speak but threw one for nothing. "Hey, Dean?"

"What?" Dean clipped without looking back at him, but his voice had already lost the sharp edge from just a few moments before.

He thinks of his brother's cold wrist beneath his fingers, that freakish chill like he'd been dunked in a frozen lake. "You . . . how did you know he was infected? The kid? Or the others?"

000000

They'd gotten lucky, the rest of the considerable trek passing without incident, other than Sam pressing him for answers, how he knew the people he'd killed miles back were infected. How he knew for sure he hadn't committed cold-blooded murder. Dean brushed him off with an  _it's complicated,_  and  _we'll talk about it later_. He wasn't sure they  _would_ talk about it later, and if it was up to him, it was a topic he intended to avoid at all costs. Even the Sam he'd left behind in this time didn't know why he could sense the Hollow Men or the infected, what had happened the day the world went to hell, the part he'd played in it. It was something he had no intention of sharing and every intention of taking to his grave. It was possible Cas knew the truth, or at least knew  _something_. But the angel never asked, and Dean never offered.

The bunker halls were quiet, dim, and chilly. It had a different feel than the place they'd left just hours ago, solemn and desolate. That's how he remembered it, even though it was technically still home. They'd just been biding their time here, until the inevitable end. Dean felt uneasy, knowing where they were,  _when_ they were.

His leg twinged with muted pain, and he winced. He couldn't help thinking about where he was right now. The Dean from here, the Dean he used to be. What he was going through. What was happening to him. He toyed with the idea of telling this time's Cas where they could find him – this time's Dean – but realized that if Sam and the others found him before the Hollow Men were . . . done, before they'd had their fun, they'd kill the others. And not just kill them, but drag it out, long and painful, and force him to watch. Just as they had in his time, at the very end. Right before Cas sent him back.

"You okay?"

He wiped the pain, the memory, from his face and nodded, threw in a wide grin for good measure. "Peachy. Let's move."

There were things he hadn't told Sam, about the future. This future. Things he had zero intention of his little brother  _ever_ knowing had come to pass. Sam and his puppy-eyes be damned; he never should have agreed to taking the kid along. This entire excursion was a fucking minefield he had to navigate with extreme caution. If the wrong person spotted Dean here, he could work with that. If someone spotted  _Sam . . ._ well _,_ that was a special kind of fucked that he would just have to deal with when –  _if –_ it came up.

They just needed to get to Cas, get the lance, and get out. They'd be out of the bunker in five minutes. Ten, tops.

They just had to  _find_ the son of a bitch.

Wordlessly, Dean moved forward down the corridor, trusting that his brother would follow. Sam did, he just apparently forgot the part about how he was supposed to be completely silent.

"Dean, what are – "

He silenced his brother with a lethal glare.

Sam's jaw clacked shut in a way that would have been comical under less serious circumstances. As they continued down the thankfully empty halls, Dean's ears perked to the sound of voices around the next corner.

"You need to trust me. And him. Castiel knows what he's doing."

_Paige._ Since going back, he'd found his thoughts drifting to the others on more than a few occasions, those who'd holed up here and joined the fight against the Hollow Men. Paige, Colin, and countless others. Dean froze, held up a hand and signaled for his brother to do the same.

"He's been in there for hours already," a heated voice returned. "And he hasn't told us a damn thing."

_Shit_. Dean's gaze went to his brother, and he watched it sink in, watched the color drain from Sam's face.

"Wait a minute…"

"Sam," he hissed quietly, urgently.

"Is that…me?"

Forget the fact that they'd clearly touched down on the wrong day. They were so screwed, so monumentally fucked if this Sam came around the corner and spotted them. Dean knew they should move, go back the way they came and sort this out, come up with a plan, but he found himself rooted in place, chest aching suddenly for this brother he'd left behind in this godforsaken time. And based on the conversation they were overhearing, Cas was nearby. They were so close.

"There's nothing to tell, Sam," Paige said patiently. "It's too early to know if he'll even – "

"He will."

_Cas?_  Dean's mind raced, trying to dig clues out of their words and place the date. A tense silence fell over the hallway. He kept his eyes pointed down, didn't dare meet his brother's gaze, unsure of what he'd find there.

"I hope you're right."

Footsteps moved away in the opposite direction, two sets. Dean released a sigh of relief, laid his head back against the tile of the hallway.

"I thought you said we wouldn't be here. Dean?"

_Dammit, Cas._ He lifted his head, licked his lips as he surveyed the dim hall.

"Dean."

"I don't know, Sam. Just . . . " They'd already come this far, done the time traveling and the half day's walk and whatever psychological damage Sam was incurring. Might as well just get it over with. Finish the mission. "Come on."

They couldn't linger in the halls, that was for damn sure. Dean peeked around the corner, found it clear. Dragging a dumbfounded Sam with him, he ducked into the first door on his right, knowing it was one of the larger living quarters, but not sure what sort of state they were about to find the angel in.

The room was empty but for the figure laid out on the bed, and Cas slumped in a chair next to it.

Castiel turned to the door as they entered, recoiled with a start. Eyes wide with surprised, he shoved up to his feet. "Dean? Sam?" He frowned, eyes ticking to the occupied bed and back. "You're not – "

"Dean."

Before he could answer the angel, Sam's voice drew his attention, soft but shocked, gut-punched. He turned to his brother, but Sam's eyes were locked on the figure behind Cas, and his face was white.

"Oh, God."

It took him a moment, ironically, to fully comprehend who it was laying on the bed in a room just across from the infirmary. He'd known they weren't in the targeted time from the moment he heard Sam's voice in the hall, but he still hadn't thought . . . hadn't realized . . .

Dean's breath caught painfully in his chest. This was surreal, a brand-new kind of torture. Phantom pains sang out from every corner of his body, nestled in his left leg in a sudden, vicious cramp that nearly dropped him to his knees. The damage had been done as soon as they touched down in this time, the wrong time. The wrong damn day. Cas was good, but he wasn't perfect, and he'd overshot their travel, dropped them a few days later than they'd talked about.

Because Dean wasn't missing, in the hands of the Hollow Men. He was right here, in this bed, clinging tenuously to life, fragile and broken in ways that would never be fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet y'all were worried I wouldn't get this chapter out today. I will say I spent all week putting off writing it then did it in an Irish coffee induced haze.
> 
> I had a random idea, not sure if anyone would want it, but I was thinking of connecting a twitter account so that I can post if I'm going to be late on a chapter or other updates and shit. I can also post little teasers from what I'm working on. I dunno, let me know if y'all would be interested in seeing that.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy the chapter, don't forget to tip your waitress on the way out and have a very happy New Years. 💕


	13. Casualty

_I lie awake cuz it haunts me_

_I thought I'd pay my prize_

_But I'm caught in the ashes_

_Oh weather the storm_

_Leaves are changing_

_and I fall_ _apart_

_No I've been here before_

_Call me a casualty_

_the cost of catastrophe_

_the damage, damage, damage is done_

* * *

This was the part he didn't remember, didn't know. Didn't want to know. Neither time nor time travel could water down the visceral memory of what the Hollow Men had done to him, couldn't erase the cutting and carving and ripping. The less he knew about what came after, the better.

All things considered, he didn't look as bad as he remembered feeling. What he could see of his face was pale and gaunt, partially hidden behind a damp cloth draped over his eyes. His left wrist was lying atop a blanket, splinted. The exposed, mangled left leg was a gruesome sight, skin purpled with bruising and slightly deformed. The most disconcerting site was the ventilator, forcing air into his lungs, doing the work for a body that had given up the fight.

Dean didn't remember this, being hooked up to the machine. One of a few pieces of medical equipment they'd been able to salvage from a nearby hospital, at Paige's request. He didn't actually know the condition he'd been in when they found him in that old broken-down factory. There were holes in his memory, a blank expanse between pulling in that last agonizing breath after being left to die and waking in considerable pain, surprised to find himself somehow still alive. Mostly.

He spent weeks cooped up in his room afterward, healing, but he never truly recovered everything they took from him.

He called to mind an older, war-hardened Sam getting in his face when Dean tried to push himself too far, his brother telling him,  _it almost killed Cas to heal you, Dean. To save you._

He didn't know he'd looked this way, hadn't wanted to.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked abruptly, eyes wide in a face that suddenly seemed so damn young.

He couldn't tell Sam what had happened to him in that factory, in those days he spent in the creative, unforgiving clutches of those  _things_. Those monsters that bore a grudge for something that was both entirely his fault and completely outside his control. He couldn't conjure the words, could barely handle the memory. Sam needed something, wanted some sort of explanation. But any answer he had to offer got caught in Dean's throat.

His brother turned to Cas instead. "What happened to him?" he demanded.

"Sam," Dean finally managed, voice thick but not without a sharp warning. "We don't have time for this."

"What year are you from?" The always dependable Cas asked, offering an out from the inevitable conversation.

Dean grabbed hold of the distraction, tore his eyes away from the prone form in the bed. "Quick and dirty version?" He gestured to Sam. "He's from two thousand and eight, I'm from two thousand and nineteen . . . and two thousand and eight, I suppose."

Cas narrowed his eyes. "How is that possible?"

Just trying to form an answer to that question caused Dean's head to ache. He rubbed his hand against his forehead and launched into an abbreviated version of how Cas had sent him back, how the angel had packed up his own memories and some grace along for the ride.

Cas tilted his head, eyebrows furrowing and then relaxing. "I didn't think that was possible."

Dean lifted his chin. "You didn't? It was your idea."

"Sending just the soul, the memories held within, back to your past self . . ." Castiel shook his head. "I've never heard of something like that even being attempted, much less succeeding. It would have been far more likely for pieces of your soul to end up scattered throughout time. Even if you managed to make contact, the force of two souls colliding . . ."

"Would cause a huge supernatural ripple? Tear each other apart? Explode?" Dean nodded. "Yeah. Check, check, and almost check."

"If it's not possible, how did you do it?" Sam interjected, his voice still low like he was afraid he'd wake the unconscious figure on the bed.

Dean figured it would just be piling on the trauma to tell his brother he was  _weeks_ away from consciousness, and there was no need to whisper.

The angel tilted his head. "I suppose there are many things we experienced over the past years that we previously believed weren't possible." He looked between them. "Perhaps this is where I got the idea."

Dean huffed, pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb, feeling that headache really start to gain traction now. "Fucking time travel."

Cas slid his gaze toward the bed then back to Dean once more. "It's good to know that you—that he—" he gestured to bed, "—will make it through this."

"Yeah, fun times." Dean grimaced, ready for this part of the conversation to be over.

"I assume you came to this time for a reason?" Cas mercifully asked, as though he sensed Dean's apprehension.

"Yeah." It definitely wasn't for sight-seeing. Dean stepped away from the bed, drawing Cas with him. "One of the teams, they found the lance of Michael. We need it to stop Lilith from breaking the seals and releasing Lucifer."

Cas narrowed his eyes once more, and Dean got the distinct feeling the angel was looking for something within his own gaze. When the angel's expression turned from curiosity to remorse, he knew his friend had found what he was looking for.

"Dean . . ." Cas started slowly, in a sympathetic tone that Dean didn't want, didn't deserve, and couldn't handle. Not here, not like this.

He shook his head. "Don't. . ."

The angel nodded once, sadness creasing his brows before it was washed away and replaced with seriousness. He looked from Dean to Sam. "You two should stay here."

"Here? Isn't there somewhere else . . ." Dean looked uneasily at the bed, creeped out by the presence of his other, wounded self and not wanting to spend more time in this room then absolutely necessary. "What if Sam and Paige . . ."

Cas shook his head. "Sam has been sitting outside the door since you were brought back. Paige sent him to get some sleep. She . . . may have slipped something into his drink to ensure he does just that."

Dean's eyebrows shot upward, slightly amused but unsurprised the almost-doctor would go to such lengths while also feeling guilty that such measures had even been needed.

"Who's Paige?" Sam asked.

Dean looked over to his brother. "She's a med student who joined our merry band of Not-Quite-Dead-Yet right after everything went pear-shaped. She was one of the first to take refuge here." He remembered clearly the day they met the aspiring doctor, a day forever ingrained into his mind, as it was the first time he realized he could feel the infected when they were close by. The first time that he felt the connection to the Hollow Men. More than that, it had been second time he shot an unarmed kid begging for his life.

"Paige won't be back for a few more hours," Cas said, interrupting Dean's spiraling thoughts. "And no one else is allowed in this room. If you stay here, you should remain undetected while I get the Lance."

Dean swallowed thickly and nodded. As Cas started toward the door, his hand shot out, grabbing the angel's arm. He gave a sidelong glance to his brother, debating his next move before deciding he could always change his mind later.

He looked back to his friend. "There's something else I need you to grab for me."

000000000000

Dean selected the corner of the room furthest from the bed, a small stoop of concrete next to the door. He rested his arms across tented knees, leaning his increasingly pounding head back against the wall and settled in for the short wait until Cas returned with the lance and they could get the hell out of this godforsaken time.

Sam, on the other hand, took up residence in the seat Cas had vacated, the chair positioned right next to his future . . . past . . . former self. His brother had been quiet since the angel left the room, but Dean knew it was only a matter of time before the kid started poking around at things that shouldn't be poked at.

Dean dragged a hand down his face, began to mentally prepare himself.

It had struck Dean with a sudden clarity as he watched his brother interact with this world, a still possible future, a still too painful past, that the very thing he had wanted to protect his brother from was also driving a wedge between them. He wanted – needed – to keep his brother safe, but he didn't know how. He didn't know what to tell his brother, had no way of knowing what he should reveal and what was better to keep to himself. They were in this very predicament because of choices made by each of them in the past, and he wasn't sure now which had been the correct ones. He was frozen with indecision, unable to distinguish the right path from the easy path, which one would be best for his little brother, and uncertain whether he even had the right to choose.

"You think he knew?"

Dean frowned, moved his hand to rub at his temple. He needed a moment to process his brother's words; the question wasn't one he'd been expecting. "Who? And knew what?"

"Castiel." Sam gestured around the room. "Our Castiel. If he has the memories from the Castiel of your future, do you think he knew that we'd end up here, in this time? I mean, instead of the day we were supposed to be here?"

"No way," he answered automatically, but couldn't really be sure. Dean hadn't considered the possibility, but he was certainly going to ask the angel about it when they got back. He really hoped his friend didn't knowingly send them into this minefield without any warning.

"So, we have time now." Sam's voice suggested trepidation and hope all at the same time.

Dean scrubbed his hands over his face. "Yeah," he relented half-heartedly. Even though he knew this was coming, he still wasn't prepared to give his brother the kind of answers the kid needed.

"Dean, what happened?" Sam's voice was still low, despite the fact Cas had taken that hit for Dean and let his brother know he wasn't at risk of waking the comatose man in the room.

"The Hollow Men," Dean said after a long moment, keeping his eyes downcast and focused on the gray slab beneath his feet. "They—" he swallowed thickly, shook his head.

Sam looked at the prone form, gaze flinching as he took in the visible injuries, lingering on the destroyed leg. "This is what Cas was talking about. Your leg still bothers you even though . . . technically, it hasn't been injured."

_Yet,_ Dean's mind supplied bitterly, and he forced the thought away. "Sam . . ." He turned to his brother, feeling a weariness he hadn't felt in a long time, a strain on his very soul. The wall he kept around himself, around all the things he didn't want to deal with had cracked the moment they landed in this time. But to do this, to talk about  _this_  – it wasn't another crack. Sam was asking him to blow the whole damn thing up. "Look, I'm sorry you had to see this. Hell, I'm sorry for this whole damn trip, but . . ." He dragged his bottom lip against his teeth and resisted the urge to knead at his suddenly throbbing leg. "But we're not gonna talk about this." He raised a hand, gestured to the spot where his future and former self lay, broken and unaware.

"Dean." Sam turned to face him better, propping an arm on the back of the chair. "Look, you can't just shoulder this alone. You got to let me help."

"How?" Dean lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. The words came tumbling out of him. "You really think that a little heart-to-heart, some caring and sharing, is gonna change anything? Somehow heal me? We're not talking about a bad day here."

"I can see that, Dean."

"They things they . . . " Dean sucked his lips against his teeth, turning his head sharply away from his brother and the bed, lifting his gaze to the ceiling as he felt another crack in his considerable defenses. He took an unsteady breath, swallowing down the lump blocking his throat. He dropped his gaze back to Sam and once again echoed the same words he'd said once before to an anxious, concerned brother, a lifetime ago. "There aren't words. There is no forgetting. There's no making it better. Because it is right here." He tapped his temple. "Forever." He shook his head, offered another shrug. "You wouldn't understand, and I would never want you too. So, I am sorry."

He watched Sam's face fall, a crushed expression, another crack. "Dean, please – "

But before his brother could manage another plea, another attempt for information the door opened, and Cas reentered the room, a long, underwhelming spear held in his right hand.

Dean shoved himself to his feet and stepped off his perch, offering the angel a silent thanks for the good timing. He was aware that a six-hour walk, alone with his brother, lie ahead of him, but was resigned to dealing with one problem at a time.

"This is the Lance of Michael?" Dean asked skeptically, as his brother came to stand next to him. "I expected it to be more, I dunno, pompous?"

"I assure you, this is Michael's Lance." Cas held it out to them, but Dean made no move to take the weapon. Anything having to do with Michael still made him uncomfortable, and he had no desire to touch the lance. Instead he stepped away and made a show of grabbing his rifle from where it was propped up against the wall, signaling his intention to get the hell out of Dodge. Sam took the lance instead, turning it over in his hands and studying the rune work.

Dean took his time wrapping the rifle's sling across his shoulder before moving to stand in front of his friend.

"Here," Cas said, digging into the pocket of his trench coat. "They weren't easy to find but . . ." He pulled out a thumb drive and offered it to Dean. "I hope they help."

Dean wrapped his fingers around the small drive and shoved it deep into the pocket of his jeans, pointedly ignoring his brother's curious look. "Thanks, Cas." A thought occurred to him, something he'd meant to bring up earlier, but wasn't sure he was willing to cause any more ripples in the timeline of his life. In the end, though, the others had a right to know. "You should know. Conner . . . he's been infected."

Cas nodded solemnly. "Did you . . ." He didn't finish the sentence, didn't need to. Dean knew what he was asking.

He glanced over at his brother, then took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. We ran into him on our way here, in an old farmhouse, but he, uh, got away. He hadn't turned yet, but if he isn't fully gone by now, he will be soon."

Sam's eyes narrowed sharply at him. "The kid in the house, you knew him?"

Dean dropped his gaze to the floor. "Yeah, Sam. I knew him. He came here from the safe house, maybe . . . a month ago?" He looked up to Cas for confirmation, and the angel nodded.

"In my time, by the time I . . ." He rolled his hand in the air, searching for the right words and giving up. "Conner had already gone missing. Cas heard from someone that he'd been infected but . . ." Dean trailed off, his mind processing the words as he said them. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and shook his head. "Fucking time travel."

"I suppose it's good you were here to warn me. Us," Cas said, "for what it's worth."

Dean took a deep breath and nodded, dropping his hand. "Be careful, Cas." He still refused to look back to the prone, broken form in the bed. "Don't kill yourself trying to fix me."  _I'm not worth it._

They both knew Cas wasn't going to listen, that he would put Dean's healing, his health, far before his own, but he had to try, and Cas nodded anyway. "Take care, Dean. And good luck, to both of you."


	14. A Storm is Comin

A storm is comin'

That you can't escape

Tears are fallin'

Like blood and rain

Thunder's shaking

And it's gonna break

A storm is comin'

That you can't escape

* * *

Sam walked mechanically along the darkened Kansas road, trailing half a step behind his brother with the archangel's weapon clenched tightly in his hand. The dim moon hanging overhead didn't provide much light, but it allowed a clear-enough view of the road ahead and allowed them to spot any movement on their perimeter. At least, he hoped so.

As they prepared to depart from the bunker, Castiel had warned them that walking back the seven hours to the drop point in the dark wouldn't be safe and asked if they would prefer to stay in the bunker until daybreak. Dean shook his head and explained the time crunch, told the angel they had only nine hours to get back to Mankato, and that it would still be dark when their Cas was scheduled to pull them back into their proper time.

His brother hadn't said a word since they left the bunker, but every few minutes he'd cast a quick glance over his shoulder, as though worried Sam was going to disappear.

He was still there – physically, at least – but his mind kept wandering back down the road, to that room where another version of Dean lay broken and teetering on the edge of life. Sam knew that while it was his brother back there in the bunker, it wasn't  _his_ brother, and wouldn't ever be. That was the entire point of all this. To change things. Dean's past, his future.

But that didn't take away from the shock and hurt Sam felt at seeing his brother like that, being kept barely alive with angelic tape and the frayed edges of hope. A part of him understood now, why Dean had spent so long refusing to say anything on the subject beyond _bad_  and  _very bad._  There weren't words big enough to encompass the scope of this world, the horrifying things that had to have happened to bring it to this point. Sam himself would have a hard time finding the words to retell what he'd seen here, and he knew he'd only scratched the surface.

Yet at the same time, he found himself wanting to know even more about what his brother went through here. How this world changed him, pushed him to the point that he could look into the eyes of a seventeen-year-old  _kid_  that he  _knew_  and pull the trigger without hesitation or remorse. That wasn't a change that happened overnight. It took necessity, desperation, and an intense erosion of human nature to reach that point, and even witnessing it firsthand, Sam had a hard time imagining his brother in such a role.

And then there were the questions surrounding how Dean had somehow known the kid was infected, with such certainty that Castiel took his word for it without a second thought. How he knew those others were infected, how he seemed to sense them before they appeared. It was something that went deeper than instinct, of that he was sure.

Sometimes, it felt like the last few years of Sam's life had amounted to wading through an endless sea of questions with no answers. Every time he did manage to get an answer, he was only swallowed by another wave of questions, threatening to pull him under the surf of the unknown until he no longer knew which way was up.

He gave his brother a sidelong glance. Dean's profile was tense, like a tightly wound coil, ready to spring at any moment. The ongoing silence was like an uncomfortable itch under Sam's skin, making him twitchy, desperate for  _something_  from his brother, but he was trying to be respectful, to remind himself of that trauma Dean had to have endured here, and the potential danger of cracking that lid.

They had just reached Mankato when the weight of the silence finally fractured Sam's patience. "Dean," he blurted. He kept his voice low, despite the fact there was no one around for miles. At least no one they were aware of.

His brother didn't respond but Sam caught the jerk of his head before he focused his attention on another defensive sweep of the surrounding area.

Sam took the acknowledgement of his voice as an invitation to continue. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"About?" His brother's tone was equally as low, clipped but not off-putting. Not yet.

Sam could make out the muscles twitching along his brother's jawline. "About—" he gestured back the way they came, "—about what happened, what you . . . " He wasn't quite sure how to put what he wanted to say into words, but he knew his brother would understand. Dean always did.

He didn't look at Sam, but his chin bobbed. "You weren't supposed to see that. If I had known . . ."

_I wouldn't have let you come._

_I wouldn't have let you see what they did to me._

_I would have protected you from it._

Dean didn't need to finish the sentence for Sam to hear the unspoken words.

"I'm sorry for putting you through that, Sam," he said with a sigh. He tipped his face back, moonlight accentuating the self-recrimination there. "For all of this."

Something about his brother's expression, his words, and the profound lack of sleep caused Sam to suck in a sharp breath. He pressed his teeth roughly against his lower lip, and shook he head, anger heating his chest. He exhaled harshly as he came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. "You know what, Dean? Go screw yourself."

Dean paused as well, clearly thrown off by his brother's sudden change in attitude. He turned to Sam with wide eyes. "What?"

Sam threw his arms out widely. "I don't want an apology from you, Dean! And by the way, I'm a big boy now, I can take care of myself."

"Oh, well, excuse me."

"Dean, I wish—" Sam rolled his lips against his teeth and looked away from his brother, taking in the few houses that spotted the area around the center of Mankato. "God, I feel like we keep having the same conversation and we're just going in circles and getting nowhere." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I just . . ." He shook his head, not sure exactly what it was he was asking from his brother but needing to try anyway. "I'm your brother, I just wish you'd to talk to me."

"Sam, look– " Dean stopped mid-sentence, his head turning sharply toward one of the buildings to the left, like a hound picking up a sent. He wore the same expression as earlier in the day, when the group of infected were nearby.

Sam knew better than to ask, just silently tightened the grip on his M4 and looked to his brother for their next move.

"Infected," Dean whispered, his voice so quiet it was barely audible. His brow furrowed tightly, and he ducked his head, pressed fingers against his temple. He stayed that way for what felt like an eternity before he dropped his hand and straightened, shaking his head like he was trying to dislodge water from his ears.

Sam shifted his weight, and when his brother's face folded once more in a tight grimace, he asked worriedly, "Dean?"

"I can't—" Dean pressed his palm against the side of his head. "There's too much talking," he gritted. "I can't tell how many . . ." he trailed off, lifting his head and turning toward an empty street, zeroing in on a small abandoned house to their left.

"Talking?" Sam gaped. "You can hear them talking?"

Dean cast him a squinted, side-eyed look, like Sam had asked a question that he should already know the answer to. He blinked and broke eye contact, chin tilting down as a frown pulled on the corner of his mouth. Sam caught the flash of disappointment in his brother's expression, like he'd forgotten in the moment who he was talking to and was disappointed when he realized it was just his brother. Just  _this_ brother.

The thought struck Sam like a blow, Dean's disappointment hitting him just as hard as his own regret at not being that person his brother was looking for. "Dean . . ." he started, but wasn't sure where to go from there, whether to apologize, or return to raging at his brother because the way things were, the way  _Sam_ was, was all because of  _his_  actions. He never got the chance to do either.

Dean grabbed his sleeve and shoved him roughly in the direction of that house on their left, shouldering his way through a rotting door and slamming it shut behind them. Sam was once again shocked by the iciness of his brother's grip, the unnatural coolness that penetrated the thick material of his coat and caused him to shiver.

His brother released his hold on Sam's arm and closed his eyes, concentration carved deeply into his features. "They're hunting," he declared, eyes blowing wide.

"Hunting? I thought the infected were like, I dunno, mindless zombies or something." Sam's voice was a harsh whisper as he stepped past a musty couch on his way to the window, trying to see what his brother was sensing. Pictures hanging on the wall were faded, covered in dust. Months' worth.

Dean pulled him away from the window and farther into the room, shaking his head. "No. Well, sort of. The—" he stopped suddenly, squeezing his eyes shut once more. He sucked in a breath, shook his head. "The quick and dirty of it is, the longer they're infected, the more—" he squinted and rolled his hand in the air, trying to find the right word and clearly failing. "The more of themselves they lose, they become mindless, and then eventually burn out. The newly turned ones, however? They're smart, real smart. Like, tactics and strategy smart. And they —"

"Hunt," Sam finished, with a quick nod. He swallowed uneasily.

Dean returned the motion with a simple bob of his chin.

"What are they hunting?" he asked, though he was pretty sure this was one of those answers he didn't actually want to hear.

"Right now?" His brother looked back at him, an apologetic look on his face. "Us."

A new chill overtook Sam, landing hard in his gut. "Then why haven't they . . . what are they waiting for?"

Dean's brow furrowing tightly. "I'm not sure. There's too much . . .chatter," he finished hesitantly, like he was offering more information than he wanted to give.

_Chatter?_ As badly as Sam wanted to press his brother for more, he simply waited for Dean to expand.

"The infected," Dean started softly, scouting the area through a set of broken blinds. "And the Hollow Men. They're a hive mind." He turned back to his brother. "They communicate with each other, can sense each other's position. They can't sense uninfected, but . . ."

"But you can sense them." The thought only served to increase that chill coursing through him, reminded him of his brother's icy grip. Sam lifted his chin. "Does that have anything to do with why your hand suddenly felt like ice? Just now, and earlier, when we ran into the others?"

There was a long beat before his brother responded. "Yeah," he said finally, turning back to the gap in the blinds.

Sam sucked his teeth. "You think, maybe, this is information you might have shared with me earlier? You know, before Castiel sent us here?"

Dean dragged a hand across his mouth. "How long we got till Cas Ex Machina?"

Sam glanced down at his watch. "Twenty-three minutes."

"Fantastic." Dean shifted his weight off his left leg with slight wince, then dug his fingers into the side of his head. "I think there are three groups, but I can't tell how many in each. I don't think it's more than four." He surveyed the space with narrowed eyes. "We can bunker down here, try to wait 'em out."

Sam nodded, but he didn't feel very confident that time was on their side. They stood in the center of the of the living room, back-to-back, eyes roaming in all directions. He counted the passing minutes by the overly loud thudding of his own heart, his brother's harsh breaths. The minutes passed tensely, though mostly uneventfully. More than once, Dean groaned audibly, a pained hum he tried but failed to trap behind tightly pressed lips. Every time, Sam would swear he could feel the chill of his brother's skin bring down the temperature in the room.

A muted thump from the back of the house drew their attention. Sam stepped instinctively closer to his brother and raised the M9. He'd switched from the heavier rifle so he could keep hold of the lance. The room at the other end of the house was bathed in darkness, making it difficult to see through to the opposite wall or where the back door may be.

"So much for waiting them out." Dean turned to him sharply. "How much longer?"

"Seven minutes," Sam replied curtly, heart thundering in his chest.

His brother cursed. "Be careful of any weapons they have. They like to coat them in their own blood." Dean's gaze dropped to the staff in Sam's hand, and his jaw clenched. "And whatever happens, keep that thing safe."

"What?" Sam hefted the lance in his left hand, raised the gun in his other. "Dean, what are you—"

A cloud of dust exploded in the main space as that back door was knocked inward with a crash. Everything that happened next was a chaotic blur, gunshots echoing through the cramped room as his brother surged forward and dispatched of their first three attackers in quick succession.

Sam swung his gun up and took out a fourth pushing its way through the small area. There was a moment of silence, long enough for a single breath, before the window behind them shattered. Immediately after, the fragile front door was busted in, and he twisted toward the sound. Behind him, his brother's rifle continued to fire. Sam set his jaw and aimed at the figure pushing through the door, squeezed the trigger. The infected man dropped to the ground, but another was there to take its spot. Sam's finger tensed on the trigger, then he recognized the face in front of him. It was the boy from the farm house. The one he'd stopped Dean from killing.

In the moment of distraction, Sam didn't see the large figure coming at him. It hit him like a freight train, emptying his lungs as it knocked him to the ground. A sharp pain sliced through his skull as his head clipped the edge of an end table.

"Sam!"

Head throbbing, he turned instinctively in the direction of his brother's call, saw instead the large shape of one of the infected launching himself toward him. He got an arm up between them just as another shape flew into his field of vision. Someone yelled, a shot was fired, and then Sam felt a tug from within his chest, like he was being yanked right out of the world.

He blinked, found himself sitting on the hard, concrete floor of the bunker's library, looking up at Bobby's weary, relieved expression. He laughed, ran a hand down his face. "Man, Cas, your timing could not have been any—" The  _better_ died on his lips as Bobby's expression turned from relieved to concern in the span of a single moment. Sam turned to follow the older hunter's eyeline, saw his brother.

Dean was bent over, clutching his right shoulder, and blood pumped thickly from between his fingers. He caught Sam staring and tried to straighten, but hissed and ended up folding over even more.

Sam scrambled to his feet, lurching toward his brother. "What the – "

"Stop!" Dean barked, with surprising strength in his voice. He lifted his right hand, wincing as he stepped back. "It's not that bad. Really. Just . . . stay over there."

"Not that bad? Dean, you – you were—" Horror caused Sam's blood to run cold. Dean had clearly gotten in the way of that infected, taken the hit that had been meant for him. "Wait, you said they coated their weapons in . . . if you . . . does that mean you're going to . . ."

His brother and Cas exchanged a look, and the angel dipped his chin, almost in concession. "No," Dean said, his voice thick with pain, his face frighteningly white. "No, I—" He bit off the words, folding once more over his injured shoulder.

Sam surged forward, unable to stand by while his brother was in pain, but was stopped short by Castiel stepping between them. "Dean is immune to the infection. As am I, since I don't possess a soul." His eyebrows folded, and he shifted his weight. "But neither of you are. I'm sorry, Sam, but you're going to have to allow me to tend to the wound. You can't go anywhere near Dean until it's properly cleaned and covered."

"Wait, I don't . . . I don't understand." Sam leaned to the side, trying to look at Dean around the angel now standing in between them. "I thought . . ." He took a breath, stopped long enough to corral in his thoughts and string a proper sentence together. "You said the infected, they . . . how are you immune? Were we immune in the future?"

Cas shook his head, "No. Dean was, and is, the only one as far as we know. It's an immunity that can't be duplicated. We tried. As for why . . ."

"Hey, not to . . . break up this . . . exciting conversation . . . but . . ." Dean gestured to his shoulder which was still bleeding freely.

000000000

Dean paused outside his brother's room, the door cracked open just a few inches. He looked down at the thumb drive in his hand, debating this choice. All he wanted, all he had  _ever_  wanted was to protect his brother, to keep the kid safe. Every decision he had ever made had been with that one thought in mind.

But he'd still made some wrong calls. Done awful things with the best of intentions, and all of it, the good and the bad, had contributed to the framework of the man Sam had become.

In the future, his brother became a hero and a leader, but that man had been forged in fire, through trauma and mistakes that had far-reaching consequences. People  _died_ because of the choices they made. Dean wanted nothing more than to protect his brother from the effects of making those mistakes all over again, but he couldn't risk changing – or  _losing_  – the man his brother was meant to become. This felt like a suitable compromise. He could still protect Sammy, but he had to let the kid grow up sometime. Had to loosen the reins and let him make his own decisions.

Dean raised a fist and knocked lightly, once, then waited for his brother's invitation before pushing open the door completely and stepping into the room.

"Hey." Sam looked up from the pile of meticulously folded clothing set out on the bed next to a small laundry basket. Some things never changed. Guilt settled over his brother's face as his eyes fixed on Dean's still aching right shoulder. "How you feeling? Is the infection – I mean, Cas was able to . . . fix it? Right?"

Dean shook his head. "It's still there. Cas – he can't heal this type of injury."

A frown pulled deeply against Sam's lips, his brow furrow in a familiar way, that look he got when he was trying to solve a particularly troubling puzzle but knew he was missing pieces. "But if you're still . . ."

Dean held up his left hand, patting the air between them. "It'll take a little bit for the infection to burn out, or whatever, but as long as I don't bleed on you or Bobby, we should be fine."

"How do you know that? And how long is a little bit?"

He dragged the chair from the desk and sat down on it backwards, leaning against the high back and tucking his right arm close to relieve some of the pressure on his injured shoulder. "It happened once before, early into . . . the end. One of the infected bled all over an open wound I had. We thought for sure I was done for, but . . . neither you nor Cas would put me out of my misery."

A muscle in Sam's jaw visibly jumped. He pushed aside a stack of folded clothes and perched attentively on the end of his bed, waiting for Dean to tell him more.

He shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable on the stiff chair. "Anyway, after a few hours we realized I wasn't showing any signs of the infection. No spreading black veins, nothing other than a fever and a – " Dean winced from the memory, " – a serious inability to keep anything down. Wasn't a fun time, but after – I think it was a week, maybe – it was like it never happened." He took a deep breath, releasing it slowly before continuing. "That was the same time I realized I could . . . feel the infected, and the Hollow Men."

Sam frowned, leaned in closer. Dean knew he had left the door wide open, and his little brother had every intention of taking advantage. "But I still don't get it. Why are you immune to the infection and how is it you can sense them? And  _hear_  them? Do you know?"

"I do."

"And?"

Dean dropped his gaze to the floor, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. This was a question the Sam from his time had asked him on numerous occasions, and each time he either deflected the question or outright refused to answer, until his brother finally stopped asking. He knew there were benefits to telling his brother what happened and  _finally_ getting it off his chest and relieving some of that pressure sitting heavy in his chest. But when he opened his mouth to tell Sam, his mind and mouth didn't seem to be communicating, and the words that tumbled out were the same old well-worn sentences he'd been dropping for years. "I, uh, I can't . . . I don't want to talk about it." He smiled tightly, apologetically, and tilted his head as he shrugged his good shoulder. "Sorry."

Sam ducked his head, a sharp nod, and Dean could tell he was trying to hide the disappointment on his face. He still caught the look and felt another crack in his wall.

His brother took a breath, looking up and shoving his hair out of face all in one motion. "So, uh . . ."

"I promised you we'd talk. About you," Dean amended quickly seeing the flash of confusion on his brother's face, "about demon blood."

Sam raised his chin, eyes widening in surprise, like this was the last thing he'd expected from Dean. In all fairness, it probably was.

Dean twisted the thumb drive between the fingers of his left hand. He chewed his lower lip, debating his opening line, when an odd object caught his attention. He frowned. "Something I should know?" he asked, gesturing to the stack of books on his brother's dresser. Or, more specifically, the dirty stuffed raccoon next to them.

Sam followed Dean's gaze then ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's, uh, just something I found. In the future." He shrugged. "I guess it's sort of like . . . a reminder."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Such a girl." He cleared his throat, pulling his gaze away from the stuffed animal and back to the thumb drive in his hand. "Look, Sam, I—" With all his being, he didn't want to have this conversation, but he knew if he didn't give his brother  _something,_  that wedge growing between them would get bigger, and he needed Sam by his side. "I know I've been sort of . . .closed-off, since . . . since I've been back." Exactly which  _back_ he was talking about was up to Sam to decide. "I've been keeping things from you, about what happened, but it's not because I don't trust you, or because I think you can't handle it." He swallowed, narrowed his eyes. "It's because I didn't want you to have to handle it."

Sam shifted on the bed but remained silent, his attention focused solely on his brother.

Dean took a deep breath, lifted the thumb drive. "Sammy," he continued, with a slight shake of his head. "You remember me telling you that Chuck, in my time, had been a writer?"

"Yeah, you said you thought he was a prophet."

"Right. Yeah. Well, the stories Chuck wrote were about . . . us. Our lives, I mean, from the time I came to get you at Stanford until . . . until he disappeared."

"Okay." Sam frowned, absorbing the information.

Dean swallowed, eyes drawn to the drive. "I'm not sure how many in this time have actually been written, since I sort of messed up the timeline, and Chuck is on sabbatical. In my time, they were written as events happened, and they were published. While we were in the future, I had Cas make a copy of those books." He held up the thumb drive for Sam to see.

The drive didn't contain  _everything._ He had spent a good part of the night combing through the files and removing a few unimportant details, including the entire ordeal with Alistair, and other major mentions of his time in Hell. Sam would still know that he went to Hell, and why he went, but that was it. There was nothing on the drive about his breaking the first seal; he wasn't ready to share that. Wasn't ready to let his brother know that he had, once again, set the world on a path toward the end. "The past year of our life, the way it was, is on here. Most of it, at least. You don't have to read the books if you don't want to, but if you do, they should answer a lot of the questions you have." He dropped his gaze. "The ones I don't know how to answer, anyway."

He held the thumb drive out to his brother, and Sam leaned forward to take it, solemnly, as though it was a precious gift.

"This is our lives?" Sam asked, somewhat awestruck as he looked at the small object now clutched in his palm.

Dean shrugged his good shoulder. "One year of it. Everything from the second seal breaking to the last."

Sam stared down at the thumb drive for a long time before raising his eyes to his brother. "Thank you, for this. Really, Dean. It means a lot."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "God, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?"

Sam snorted and shook his head. "No."

"Good." He pushed up out of the seat, suppressing a groan. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go drink till my shoulder is numb, and then maybe drink a little more."


	15. Roads Untraveled

Weep not for roads untraveled

Weep not for paths left lone

'Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end

It's the worst kind of pain I've known

Give up your heart left broken

And let that mistake pass on

* * *

Sam spent the next forty-eight hours sucked into a story that seemed more fiction than fact, though he knew this was his brother's history. There were more than a few parts in the books that required a beer or two to dull the ache building in his chest, and he resisted the urge to drink more, not wanting anything to stand in the way of his understanding of the life his brother lived.

He was a fast reader by nature, but he did nothing less than devour these books. He inhaled the details of their lives that were, but weren't. That would never be, because of Dean. Sam read of fantastical things that stole his breath and made his heart ache, things that infuriated him, and things that caused undue guilt to roil in his chest. More than once, he hit a part of the story so jarring, so shocking that he had to squash the urge to march straight to his brother to demand more information, or some sort of validation.

When it came to reading about the time Dean spent in Hell, about what he endured and the nightmares that had followed, Sam wanted nothing more than to ream his brother out for not telling him.

But  _this_  was Dean telling him. It was Dean telling him the worst things he'd been through, and how his little brother hadn't been there for him when he needed him most. And Sam could understand now a little better just what it had taken, what it had cost his brother to do this much. He could understand Dean's trepidation about trusting him with this information, with  _any_  information. It killed him that any version of himself could have treated his brother in such a way.

He kept hoping for a certain passage to jog his memory, like this was a test, like he'd really been there with his brother the whole time and Dean was just trying to jostle Sam's memories loose. But none of that happened. None of the events in the books were familiar, let alone believable. It was a horror story with a recognizable cast of characters.

He understood. He wanted to be mad, wanted to hang on to those last lingering bits of indignation over the fact Dean had kept all of this from him for so long, and that he had literally traveled through time to keep these things from happening.

By the time he read the final page of the last book,  _"Dean . . .he's coming"_  and a brilliant flash of white that enveloped them both, Sam's head was spinning, but he also hadn't felt so calm since this entire ordeal began. He had an inkling now, of the life his brother had lived—the literal Hell he'd been though—and he'd seen the future Dean was fighting to avoid. His questions had been answered. He had more now, sure – truckloads' worth. But he was okay with that, because he had his proof that Dean wasn't willing to cut him out of this, that he was still trusting Sam to have his back.

He pulled the thumb drive from his computer and held it in his palm. Such a small, seemingly insignificant object, but it was an olive branch, a show of faith. Of brotherhood. Sam leaned back against the headboard of his bed, head beginning to throb from lack of sleep.  _God_ , his body wanted nothing more than to shove down under the covers and pass out for the next eight hours, minimum, but he needed to process what he'd read while it was still fresh. He needed to categorize the stories and figure out where to go from here.

Before he did anything, he needed to see Dean. If their roles were reversed, if Sam had given his brother this sort of goldmine of forbidden information of the future he'd erased…well, he knew Dean had to be feeling insane amounts of stress waiting for his reaction.

He stopped first by his brother's room but found it empty, the bed neat, sheets all tucked in as if Dean hadn't been in there since they got back. Sam hoped that wasn't the truth but wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was. His brother seemed to be in the habit of thinking sleep was optional, but if what Sam read about that one year of Dean's life was true, he could understand why his brother would do everything in his power to avoid sleep sometimes. He would too.

Sam turned down the hall toward the library, assuming if Dean wasn't in his room he might be in the library, looking for a way to track down Lilith. A small noise in the kitchen had him changing directions. At first glance his brother seemed relaxed, standing at the island, scraping jelly out of a jar. Sam, for all his uptightness, had never been so happy to his brother looking loose and lazy. It was as though everything really had stopped for a few days. God knows, they all needed it.

When Dean noticed him standing on the threshold he straightened, glanced down at his watch. "Damn, Sammy. Didn't expect you to surface for at least another day."

"What can I say?" He smiled nervously, stepping into the room. "It was a real page-turner."

Dean snorted in agreement and set the glass jar to the side. Up close, Sam could see the lines around his brother's eyes, the paleness in his face, the way he tucked his right arm close against his side. He licked a smear of jelly off his thumb. "We gonna have the talk now?"

Right, his shoulder. Worry gnawed in Sam's gut, but he knew Castiel had patched his brother's wound. The man wasn't a superhero; he wouldn't have fully healed by now, and it had to cause him a fair amount of pain to move the arm. For an entirely new reason, Sam was suddenly glad that this downtime had come when it did.

"Earth to Sam." Dean snapped his fingers, raised his eyebrows.

"What? Uh, no." Sam shook himself from his thoughts. Damn, but he really needed to sleep. He slid onto one of the stools surrounding the table. "No talk."

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"Shut up." Sam leaned forward, laid his forearms on the table and clasped his hands together. "I don't want to…bombard you with questions about what I just read. About what you, what I…I just wanted to say that…"

Dean frowned. He lifted his plate from the counter and moved to the table. The motion brought added tightness to his features, but he was completely focused on Sam, not on his very obvious pain. "What is it?"

"It's just. . .some of the things that I did. . .trusting a demon, going behind your back like that. . ." His brother sucked in a harsh breath, and Sam held up a hand. "I know it wasn't  _me_  who did those things, I do. But I can't help feeling that some part of you must still think of all that when you look at me."

"It's not like that, Sam."

"It's okay if it is."

Dean dropped his gaze and shook his head but didn't say any more.

Sam leaned back, rubbed his hands roughly over his face. "And if this was just one year. . .Dean, man. . ."

"Sam—"

"I'm just saying, I get it now. Or, I get it better than I did."

"So you're really just. . .cool? With all of this? Nothing to yell at me about or rake me over the coals for? No burning questions?"

"Dean, I have ton of questions, trust me. But you don't want to talk about it, and I'm not pushing."

Dean gave a small nod, his face a mask of calmness, and Sam couldn't help but wonder what his brother was feeling, what was laying just beneath the surface.

He pressed his lips into a tight line, knocked his knuckles against the table as he stood, all intention of leaving his brother to his thoughts, but he paused as something came to mind. "Actually. I do have one question."

Dean looked up, squinting softly.

"What about our—brother?" He tripped over the word, one that felt foreign and wrong when he wasn't referring to Dean. "Adam?"

Dean nodded knowingly, shoulders slumping. "Cas took care of it the night we came to the bunker. Killed the ghouls that were after him and his mom, branded their ribs so they can't be found by supernatural means and did a, uh, a memory wipe. Of Dad."

Sam recoiled. "Dean—"

"I made the call, Sam. I know I should've involved you. He's your brother, too. But I just. . .it's better this way. Cas gave him some false memories of a different father, set them up somewhere nice where their biggest worry will be which college to go to and what to have for dinner. Better if he doesn't even know we exist."

"Better for who?"

000000000

Between Sam's intense, questioning gaze and the relentless ache of his wrecked shoulder, it was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic in the kitchen. Dean rubbed at the back of his neck with his left hand and wordlessly strode past his brother, aiming for the larger, airier library, his sandwich forgotten. He sank into a chair at one of the wide tables with Sam following closely behind. He'd never actually answered his brother's last question, and he'd be lucky if Sam let him get away with that. Dean did feel that Adam was better off living another life – a safer life – far away from them and out of the angels' grasp. But the truth was, there was selfishness in his decision, as well, a desire not just to keep the kid safe, but to not have to see another life become completely destroyed because of them. He'd allowed Sam to find out about Adam from a computer screen, and then taken away any chance of meeting his younger brother, any chance of being an older brother. That might not be  _fair_ , but Dean was positive it was  _right._

In his time, Adam had been killed, resurrected and possessed by Michael, then dropped into that cage in Hell to sit for years, even as the world ended upstairs. So, yeah, he was pretty sure this was better for Adam. It was better for everyone.

Sam settled into a chair across from him. His brother didn't say anything more, but was watching him, always watching him so closely. The shoulder was killing him, but Dean couldn't let his little brother see, couldn't allow Sam to keep the injury top of mind. That would only lead to more questions, and Dean was nowhere near prepared to divulge that sort of information. Never would be. A sharp pain flared in the wound, and he bit the inside of his cheek, clenched his fingers into a fist until his nails dug into his palm, but he kept it from his face, dragging forward one of the open books he and Cas had been looking through. They still needed to find Lilith.  _That_ needed to be top of mind, no some silly scratch.

Eventually, Sam grew bored of staring at him, and his gaze drifted off to a safer middle-distance in the large room.

Relieved, Dean sank a bit in his seat, relaxing as the flare of pain subsided. He was a bit surprised his brother hadn't asked about anything else he'd clearly read in those books. Not about the demon blood, or Ruby, or the specifics surrounding the time Dean spent in Hell. He knew every single one of those things had to be eating at the kid, but as awful of a writer Chuck may or may not have been, the stories laid everything out decently enough, including all those necessary whys behind what his brother had done.

Dean was pulled from his thoughts as the door in the war room opened with a loud, rusty groan. He and Sam exchanged a look. He braced his hands on the tabletop as he shoved up from his chair, biting back a gasp as the torn muscle in his right shoulder pulled, and made his way into the next room. He trotted down the short steps, his brother in tow, just in time to see Bobby and a familiar figure clomp down the stairs.

"Bela," Dean said in exaggerated greeting. "Thought I smelled something rotten."

"Dean, always the charmer." She flashed a wide, false grin, trailing a light hand along the railing as she descended. "You know, a real gentleman would make sure I had a key, so I could come and go."

Dean crossed his arms with a scowl. "That's not gonna happen." He lifted his chin as she stepped off the bottom stair. "Where the hell have you been?"

Cas entered the room then, eyes narrowing at Bela's return. Dean couldn't fault his friend. Every time the woman drew a breath, it roused suspicion.

She tossed her hair. "While you boys were off playing in the future—"

"Playing?"

"—I was figuring out a way to locate Lilith."

Dean's eyebrows arched skyward, and he caught his brother's enthusiastic jerk out of the corner of his eye. "Really?"

Bobby walked around her to drop a large bag onto the table. "How'd you manage that?" he asked drily.

"I asked some friends on the other side," Bela replied, as though it should have been obvious. "Some recently departed that were very in-tune with her."

Sam nodded, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "And they told you where she's gonna be?"

Bela cocked her head, dragged her teeth across her lower lip. "Not exactly. But they knew where she is," she continued, before the disappointment could settle in. "Right now. As of a few hours ago."

Bobby narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "How do we know she's still there?"

She shrugged. "We don't, but unless you have something better . . ."

Dean pursed his lips into a thin, frustrated line. That phrase –  _unless you have something better –_ was becoming more and more common in just the last few weeks, and he had a sinking feeling that this wasn't going to be the last time they used it. "All right. So, where is she?"

"A town called New Harmony. It's in—"

"Indiana." Dean cut her off, that sinking feeling turning his gut to ice. "How are we supposed to know this information is good? That it's not just another trap?"

"You don't trust me?" She pressed a hand to her chest, had the nerve to look insulted.

"Bela, when you breathe the air comes out crooked. So, no, I don't trust you." Dean shifted his weight as another spike of fiery pain rocked the wound in his shoulder, but no one seemed to attribute it to anything more than uneasiness.

"Look." Bela's gaze hardened, and she folded her arms across her chest, matching Dean's posture. "I want Lilith just as dead as you do."

"No, Bela, you don't," Dean countered, drawing a surprised look from his brother. "You just don't want to go to Hell. You're desperate not to, and desperate people do stupid things." He would know; he had more than one stupid decision made from desperation under his belt to recognize the barely-concealed panic in the woman's eyes.

"Well, ain't you just bringing down the room," Bobby supplied wryly.

Dean dropped his arms to his side, hoping to relieve some of the pressure on his aching shoulder. He gave the older hunter a tight, fake smile. "Yeah, well, it's a gift."

"So, then what do you want us to do here, Dean?" Sam stepped around him, moving into a central spot in the room, playing a middle-ground angle. "I mean, this is the sort of break we've been waiting for, right?"

He grit his teeth, curled his right hand once more into a fist at his side. "Look, either we go in smart or we don't go in at all."

Sam turned wide eyes to Bobby before redirecting his attention back to his brother. "Well, we have a bona fide demon-killing lance and an angel on our side. I'm not sure what more you want, Dean."

"An angel nuke," he muttered under his breath.

"Dean," Cas spoke for the first time since Bobby and Bela entered, "There is no reason to believe the Lilith in this time has any knowledge of your connection to New Harmony."

"Connection?" Sam turned toward his brother, eyebrows drawn together. "What connection?"

Dean ignored his brother's question, instead posing one of his own. "What's Lilith even doing in New Harmony anyway?"

"Most likely she is after the seal there," Cas supplied.

Dean jerked his head back. "There's a seal in New Harmony, Indiana?"

Cas nodded, but offered nothing else.

Dean reluctantly returned the nod. "All right, if we're gonna do this, then we should go now. Before the bitch has a chance to move on." Despite his initial protestations, he knew they were going in smart, knew they had everything they needed to kill the demon and then some, but he still couldn't help the uncomfortable itch under his skin, like he was missing something. He was probably just being overly cautious, knowing his shoulder could be an issue and desperate to avoid revisiting a place where everything had once gone south too damn fast.

Dean turned to Bela. "You coming?"

She held both hands up in the air. "Oh, no. I've done my part getting you the information. Lilith still owns my soul, and I think I'm safest staying right here in the bunker until that is no longer true."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I didn't think so." He turned away from the woman, squaring his shoulders as he faced Sam, Bobby, and Cas. "All right let's get what we need, and Cas can zap us there." He waited for the angel to nod his agreement. "At least we'll have the element of surprise."

00000

Sam watched as his brother turned and exited the room, heading back to collect what they would need for this trip. As happy as he was at the prospect of finishing this and ridding the world of this threat, Sam would feel a hell of a lot better about this outing happening  _now_  if his brother didn't look like a strong breeze would knock him right over.

During the conversation Dean had been favoring his right arm and obviously not feeling one hundred percent, even with two days' rest. Or what Sam could only hope was rest. He'd been preoccupied with the books and hadn't had eyes on his brother for far too long after Castiel whisked him away to the infirmary. He'd expected the angel to have some kind of healing power, but there was something about this injury, this sort of infection, that they were keeping from him.

After a moment's pause, He followed Dean down the hall to his room. His brother turned toward him, an eyebrow raised questioningly, but remained silent. Just days ago, Sam wouldn't have risen to the challenge of speaking first, but something about reading those books, about getting a glimpse of where his brother was from, what he'd been through and what he'd traded in had forced him to grow up, quickly. "You sure you're up for this?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You look like crap, Dean."

His brother snorted, dropping an empty duffel onto his bed. "Well, there's no accounting for taste."

"I'm serious, man."

"So am I, Sam." Dean turned to grab a shotgun off his desk, bumping his shoulder against the dresser. He flinched at the contact, hummed a low, tight noise of pain.

Sam bit his tongue but raised his eyebrows as his brother made his point for him.

Dean sighed, wincing as he rotated his injured shoulder. "Okay, okay. I get it. But this has to be done, and it has to be done now. Trust me when I say we won't get another chance like this." His gaze was bright with pain and the lingering remnants of fever, but intense.

Sam swallowed uneasily, but nodded. He had to trust his brother. He had no other play. "Okay, Dean."

Dean smirked, but it was without any zip. Instead, the motion seemed forced, and tugged at those weary lines carved in his face. "Besides," he said, "I'll feel freakin' fantastic once we kill Lilith."


	16. It's a Sin

_Father forgive me..._

_I tried not to do it..._

_Turn over a new leaf,_

_and tore right through it._

* * *

Dean walked back into the bunker's library with a loaded duffel bag in hand and his brother in tow. While his bag held an assortment of weapons, Sam had the Lance of Michael clutched tightly in his hand. Cas had gone ahead to New Harmony to see if he could pinpoint Lilith's location before they zapped into an unknown, dangerous situation. The angel reappeared in the center of the room just as they entered. Dean bypassed any greeting, raising his eyebrows in question.

Cas shook his head. "There's something there, but it's being hidden from me. I couldn't sense Lilith specifically, or narrow the source down to a single location."

Dean sighed, rolled his head on his shoulders. "Awesome. Looks like we go about this the old fashion way then." He dropped the duffel to the nearest tabletop and pulled a folded map from his coat pocket, unrolled the paper across the polished wood.

Sam shifted his weight, looked over Dean's shoulder while keeping a deliberate amount of space between them. "What do you think?"

"I think they've got a lot of churches for a town of a thousand people," Dean responded drily, without looking up.

"Any of those churches ringin' any bells?"

"Not the churches, no." Suppressing a wince, Dean trailed his right hand along one of the roads, tapped a specific spot. "But the hospital – that's a possibility."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Why the hospital?"

"Lilith has a . . . thing for infant's blood. I wouldn't put it past her to stop for a snack. And if she's not there, I would bet one of her cronies are."

Bobby scratched thoughtfully at his chin. "Be sort of hard to gank a demon in the middle of a hospital."

"It'll be hard to kill the bitch anywhere we try to do it," Dean muttered. He straightened from his lean over the table, tucking his right arm close to his body. Despite the fact it'd been days since he'd been injured, his shoulder was aching something fierce, but only he moved his arm. Or thought about moving his arm.

His brother noticed, opened his mouth, and Dean moved swiftly to intervene.

"We should split up." Dean announced, turning to Bobby.

"Split up?" Sam stepped closer, eyes widening. "Dean, I'm not sure that—"

Dean held up a hand, cutting him off. "We don't know where Lilith is, or how long she's gonna be here. Thirty-two seals have already been broken." He swallowed, frowned. "I don't know what's changed, but they're breaking seals a lot faster this time around. We can't mess this up. We have a real chance to take Lilith off the board." He turned back to the map on the table, nodded. "Bobby, you and Sam head for the hospital. See if you can locate Lilith or one of her cronies."

The older hunter bobbed his chin stiffly in agreement, but Sam shifted, eyes dropping to Dean's injured shoulder. "What about you?"

Dean bit the inside of his cheek as little knives of hot pain shot down his arm and all the way into his hand as he jabbed a finger at a mark that read  _Episcopal Church_. "Cas and I will check out one of the old churches just to the north. Seems like a possible location for a seal, for why Lilith might be in New Harmony." Dean gathered up the map, folded it and shoved it back into his coat pocket. He gestured to the lance Sam had in hand, smirked wanly. "Not sure you'll get that thing past security, Sammy. Better leave it with the grown-ups."

Sam rolled his eyes as he held out the lance. Dean reached out to take it, but his brother kept his fingers wrapped around the staff. "Dean . . ." he said quietly, a warning coloring his tone.

Dean swallowed, shoulder aching from the angle of his outstretched arm. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Francis. If we see anything fishy, we'll call."

"Promise?"

"Scout's honor." He held up two fingers with his left hand, holding the lance in the other.

Sam shook his head, fingers whitening as he tightened his grip on the weapon, refusing to hand it over. "You were never a Boy Scout, Dean. That's not even their salute."

"I'll be fine,  _Mom_." Dean jerked his head toward Cas. "I will  _literally_  have an angel on my shoulder."

The angel tilted his head, brows furrowed as a look of confusion twisted his expression. "Dean, I'm far too large to sit on your shoulder."

Sam sighed heavily but finally released the lance. Dean stepped back, tried to make it look natural as he transferred the weapon to his left hand to take some of the strain off his injured shoulder. His brother was clearly displeased with the arrangement, but that was okay. He didn't need Sam to like the plan, he just needed the kid safe.

"If you idgits are done.?" Bobby crossed his arms over his chest, raised his eyebrows expectantly. "I'd like to get this done before the world ends."

"Right." Sam ducked his head, gave his brother one last patented worried-Sammy look before Cas reached out and pressed two fingers against each of their foreheads. Sam closed his eyes tightly at the contact, and both hunters disappeared.

Dean stared for a moment at the space where his brother had just stood, before shaking away his unease and turning to give one last look at the thief sitting silently at the table. Bela had been unsettling quiet throughout the entire conversation, seemed as comfortable as ever as she reclined in one of the wooden chairs. "Try not to steal anything," he ordered sourly.

Bela rolled her eyes, held her hands up in surrender. "I won't touch your precious trinkets, Dean." She tilted her head and smiled sweetly, making an 'X' across her chest. "Cross my heart."

Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the angel. "Let's go."

Like Sam, he squeezed his eyes shut as Castiel's cool fingertips pressed against his forehead. His stomach rolled as the light behind his eyelids shifted from the muted, neutral tones of the bunker to a dark, overcast sky. Cold rain instantly slapped at Dean's cheeks and soaked through his jacket as he blinked up at a white, steepled church.

He looked around the area, trying to get his bearings. He supposed things looked familiar, if he wanted them to, but he didn't really remember much of the town. He hadn't  _wanted_ to remember this place, had actively avoided the area like the black plague in the years after his first visit to New Harmony.

Cas pressed his lips into a thin line. "We're not going to that church, are we?"

Dean shook his head. "No." He gestured down the block, rainwater dripping from his outstretched arm. "There's an old boarding house a few blocks over."

"You lied," Cas stated, as nonchalantly as ever.

"I did. I do that."

"Why?"

"Cas . . . " Dean dragged a hand down his face, flicking away rainwater. "I don't trust Bela on a good day, okay? Now, she shows up after four days of radio silence, doing God knows what, and I'm just supposed to believe that some ghosts told her where Lilith is?" He shook his head. "This whole thing stinks."

"I don't smell anything," Castiel replied, lifting his chin.

Dean ignored the comment. "Maybe Bobby and Sam find something useful at the hospital. But if I'm right? If this is a trap? Then I need them as far away from danger as possible. And if it's not a trap . . . " He adjusted his grip on the lance, hefted the weapon in his aching hand. "Then we get to kill a whore."

00000

The derelict house seemed to be barely standing in the wake of the rising storm, its siding and cracked windows battered by the same heavy wind and rain that was aiming to knock Dean sideways. The porch offered little relief from the downpour, full beams missing overhead and allowing the rain to continue to pummel his head and shoulders. The front door was wedged precariously in place, in a way that had him pretty sure that if he tried to kick it in, the whole damn building would come down on them. Blinking rain from his eyes, he turned to Cas to voice that very thought, but before he could say anything the angel reached out, placed a hand on his shoulder. In the span of a breath, the pair was on the other side of the fragile doorway.

The smell of mildew and rotted wood was overpowering, the stink topped off by a hint of something Dean didn't even want to try to identify. But at least he was dry. "You couldn't do that before we walked ten minutes in this monsoon?" he griped, shaking water from his clothes and running a hand through his wet hair.

Cas seemed indifferent to his complaint. "You didn't ask."

Dean rolled his eyes and stepped past his friend, moving further into the dark, dank house. Almost instantly, an eerie feeling washed over him, setting his teeth on edge and causing his muscles to tense. He discretely transferred the lance to his left hand and made a fist with his right, trying to work out the soreness spreading through his entire arm. It wasn't worth trying to hide his unease; it was clear Cas felt it too.

They picked a cautious route through the first floor, stepping carefully around bits of rotten wood in the floorboards, passing cracking paint and at least one rat foraging in the debris.

Dean made a face at the rodent, then sniffed and cleared his throat. He kept his voice low, just above a whisper. "So apparently, a few hundred years ago this area was the center of a summoning for some Greek god named Aion, shockingly things went south. I figured, considering the house's history, it's the perfect place for a—" Dean startled as the rat skittered across his path and disappeared into a hole in the baseboard. Suddenly, the house felt too still, empty and dead in a deliberate way.

"A seal." Cas twisted toward him, a look of understanding and worry carving lines into his typically passive face. His eyes widened. "Dean, you need to leave," the angel ordered, lifting a hand toward him.

"What?" Dean jerked back out of his reach, fingers tightening reflexively around the staff of the lance.

Cas pressed his lips into a thin line, stepped forward urgently. "Dean, Lilith isn't here. But the seal—"

A shearing white light erupted at the end of the hallway before Cas could finish, tore toward them through the narrow space.

Dean raised a hand and ducked his chin instinctively. His eyes watered, but he still managed to catch a glimpse of the light swallowing Cas and blasting his friend away with a faint flutter of wings.

"Always knew you were a big, dumb, slow, dim pain in the ass, Dean."

Meg.

_Shit._

Dean lowered his hand slowly, heart rate picking up speed. On the wall behind the demon, dark blood dripped from the edges of the familiar sigil she'd used to blow Cas to Oz.

"But I never dreamed you were so V.I.P."

00000

Sam cast another discreet glance at his silent phone and sighed. Overhead, the intercom buzzed to life, announcing some meaningless code taking place elsewhere in the small two-story hospital. The only action he'd seen since they stepped foot inside. He should have felt comforted by the fact Dean hadn't called, but a nagging pit of unease still gnawed in his gut. He trusted his brother – he had to – but he couldn't help feeling this hospital trip was a complete bust.

It had only been a minute or two, but he pulled the phone from his pocket, pressed a button and checked the screen again.

"He said he'd call, Sam."

Sam scoffed but tucked the phone away. "Yeah, 'cause Dean's not the self-sacrificing type at all."

Bobby stopped walking, turned toward him. "There something you wanna share with the class?"

Sam stopped as well. He chewed his lip, contemplating his words before he unleashed his frustration with his brother on the undeserving Bobby. The internal scales tipped, and he threw his hands out to the side. "What the hell are we doing here, Bobby?" he demanded, a harsh whisper so they weren't overheard. "There's nothing here."

The older hunter was used to shouldering misplaced anger. "You think your brother's information was wrong?" he offered, neither agreeing or disagreeing with the statement, but Sam could see the man was holding back his fair share of suspicions.

"I think he wanted us out of the way." The words flew from his lips as more of an accusation than a concern.

Bobby sighed patiently. "Your brother isn't always the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to family, but I don't think he's stupid enough to go up against Lilith by himself." He tilted his chin thoughtfully. "And even if Dean is that stupid, he still has the angel and the lance. That's a pretty big ace up his sleeve."

"I guess," Sam replied, wanting to roll his eyes but settling for looking away down the hallway. At the end of the hall, a young man was robotically feeding coins into the slot of a coffee vending machine. Sam couldn't help but remember the day he stood in much the same spot, feeding a handful of coins into the machine and fidgeting impatiently as the cup filled, eager to get back to his father and brother. "You think he's okay?" he asked distractedly, a wayward thought escaping an overtaxed mind.

"Dean?" Bobby frowned. "He said he'd call if he found anything."

Sam pulled his eyes away from the kid as he walked away with the coffee. "So, you don't worry about him?"

The older hunter narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean? Before this trip?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I kind of mean more like, uh. . . more like ever since he came back. . . and the trip to the future." He sighed, shook his head. Maybe he was just tired. Scratch that; he was  _definitely_ tired. "I dunno. Something just feels . . . off."

"Well, I imagine your brother is under a lot of stress. Trying to, you know, stop the world from ending. Again."

"Right, yeah, but what if—"

"What if what, Sam? You know, you worry about him. All he does is worry about you. Who's left to live their own life here? The two of you. . ." Bobby trailed off, shaking his head. "Look, we've just about covered everything here. We can split up. You take a quick look in the basement, and I'll finish this floor. If there really is nothing here and your brother sent us here to keep us out of the way, I'll kill 'im myself."

Sam nodded, dragging a hand down his face. "Yeah, okay." He turned away from Bobby and headed the other direction. He didn't necessarily feel any better about the situation, but the sooner they confirmed this dead end, the sooner they could meet up with Cas and Dean. Hopefully before his brother did something reckless.

He located the basement stairwell, a painted metal door marked 'Employees only,' and cast a glance down the hall. A nurse in a cat-patterned scrub top rounded the corner and moved out of sight, and Sam pushed it open and trotted down the stairs. He swiftly shoved through the matching door at the bottom of the stairwell, paused for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

Sam fished a pocket flashlight out of his coat and began his search of the basement. He found two unlocked doors on his right, but they only opened into an empty laundry room and a garbage bin stuffed with ribbon-wrapped bouquets of flowers, petals wilting and falling from the stems.

There was a corner beyond the trash room, and Sam found one more door around the bend, cool, flat, stainless steel. Inside was a sterile, chilly morgue, with two bare steel gurneys and a wall of polished steel doors. Sam sighed, but didn't feel defeated. He knew he'd find nothing down here. The entire trip was a waste of time, a distraction.

He shook his head, flipped off his light and crammed it back into his pocket. He stepped back out of the room, stopping short as a flashlight beam shone directly in his eyes, momentarily blinding him.

Sam ducked his chin and blinked. "Bobby, what the – " But when he raised his eyes, it wasn't his friend standing before him, but a cop. With a gun pointed right at him.

"Hands in the air! Down on your knees!"

Sam swore under his breath as he raised his hands slowly. He obeyed the order, lowered himself to his knees on the cool concrete.

A second officer moved behind him and roughly grabbed his wrists, dragged them behind his back and handcuffed him while reciting his rights. Sam winced at the pressure, looked up as a third man stepped into the dimly lit area.

"Hi, Sammy. It's been a while."

00000

There had been so many balls in the air since coming back, so many events and people to juggle and keep straight and not fuck up, Dean hadn't even spared Meg a thought, had actually forgotten that the demon was alive and roaming free in this time. They might have eventually ended up playing for the same team a few times, but right now? There was no way she wanted him for anything other than to kill him. Probably as slowly as possible.

It had been his bad feeling from the jump, his genius idea to break up the group, and now he was alone with the demon who had aimed to torture him –  _nice and slow, like pulling the wings off an insect –_ the last time they'd tangled. At least, as far as she was concerned. And that was not good. She was wearing the same vessel he remembered from his time, round face and limp dark hair. The girl had wanted to be an actress, Dean remembered. He imagined this wasn't the sort of role she'd had in mind.

Meg cocked her hip and rubbed her hands together, smearing the blood between her palms. "Imagine my surprise when Lilith asked me, personally, to come here. Just for little 'ole you."

Dean lifted his chin defiantly but didn't speak. He didn't have much to lose, allowing her a moment of villainous monologuing. He knew how she fought, and he had a damn powerful weapon in hand. He shifted his weight and hefted the lance, tried to take up a defensive position without being too obvious about it. The small motion tugged at his wounded shoulder, and he clenched his jaw against the rising ache.

"I mean, time travel, Dean-o? You're at the top of everyone's Christmas list this year."

"Well, get in line."

A grin split her lips. "Oh, I'm in the front of the line, baby."

That was as good a dinner bell as he was going to get. Dean spun the lance in his hand and surged forward, didn't get far. An invisible force slammed into him before he made so much as a step, and he lost his hold on the weapon as he was flung back. He struck the wall, hard, and crumpled to the floor in a shower of dust and rotted bits of wood.

He landed on his injured arm and the world went red. He groaned and grabbed at his shoulder, but didn't have time to nurse his wounds. He shifted, trying to get the wall at his back so he could make it back to his feet.

Meg walked leisurely down the hallway toward him, taking her time, trailing her fingertips along the wall. Like there was no rush. Like he wasn't going anywhere, even if he tried.

Dean hugged his right arm tight to his side and braced his left hand against the wall to haul himself unsteadily to his feet. He searched the darkness for the lance, located it right next to the toe of Meg's heeled boot.

_Shit._

The demon  _tsked_  as she stooped to collect the weapon. Meg tossed the staff from one hand to the other, testing the weight. "Cute," she commented. She dragged the pad of her thumb across the bladed end as grinned as blood welled at the spot. She raised her gaze, met Dean's eyes. "You know, this thing could do some real damage."

Dean ordered his hurting, sluggish body to move away from the wall, to take her around the middle or, hell, even just make a chicken-shit dash for the door, but he wasn't moving quickly enough. He'd hardly straightened when she rammed the point of the lance into his right shoulder, straight through to the wall.

He couldn't say for sure whether he cried out as she stabbed him, from shock or pain or both. For what felt like an eternity, he lost all sensation, existed in a senseless cloud of hazy gray. Then it all snapped back like a rubber band, and the only thing that mattered was the excruciating, white-hot pain emanating from his skewered shoulder.

Dean forced himself to remain as still as possible. His body was trembling violently as it absorbed the trauma inflicted, each tremor jarring the staff that protruded from his shoulder. He swallowed against the need to vomit, as spots sparked in his vision. "Evil bitch," he growled. Or intended to growl; what came out was barely audible, his voice strained as he fought against the pain threatening to pull him under.

"Keep sweet-talking me, this could go in a whole new direction." She moved forward, placing a hand against the wall and leaning in close to admire her handiwork.

"There's no seal here is there?" he choked out, forcing some volume.

"Actually, there is." She smiled sweetly, cocked her head and drew her bottom lip between her teeth. "Never thought we'd get the chance to break this one. You see, breaking this seal requires an extremely rare ingredient."

He swallowed, bit down on the inside of his cheek. "What's that?"

"The blood of a time traveler." She lowered her gaze, trailed her fingers across his chest.

"What?" Dean's head jerked despite his desire to keep still, and the movement traveled through his chest, jostled the spear. He gasped at the agony caused, as his vision strobed violently and his legs threatened to give out.

Meg nodded. "One more seal broken. All thanks to you, Dean." She grinned, pressed a palm against his blood-drenched chest.

He cried out, a yell raw enough to wake the dead, if he weren't alone here, and unquestionably screwed. There was more pressure against his chest, and Dean lowered his chin in spite of himself, saw blood filling a small glass vial at a frightening speed.

When the vial had filled, Meg stepped back. "Hang tight," she said with a smile. But she didn't move away, not immediately. She seemed to be contemplating his predicament, weighing some options in a way that had Dean really dreading the final outcome. She straightened, wordlessly kicked at his knee. Just enough to make him flinch, just enough for his leg to buckle and cause him to slip against the wall, dropping more unwelcome weight against the spear that was holding him in place.

Dean's head snapped back against the wall as he bit down around the cry, trapped the yell behind clenched teeth.

She pouted, disappointed. "I'll be right back."

With that, the demon disappeared from his field of vision. Dean swallowed thickly, tried to push through the haze of pain clouding his mind. Tried to rack his reeling brain for an escape. "Cas," he called once, quietly, but knew it was pointless. If he was getting out of this one, he was going to have to do it alone.

Resigned, he lifted a hand and wrapped his shaking fingers around the staff of the lance, but even the small act of touching the weapon was enough to leave him once more on the verge of blacking out. He tightened his grip and closed his eyes, drew in a few quick breaths, then pulled on the spear. The lance bounced violently but remained embedded into the wall as pain exploded in his shoulder. A scream ripped from his lungs as his vision popped and sparked like a flashbulb.

This time, he did black out. The next thing Dean was aware of was a thundering crack and flash of light from the room Meg had disappeared into, and she was standing in front of him once more, head cocked in that frustrating way, studying him. She reached out and yanked the lance free without warning or hesitation, in one swift motion.

Dean dropped heavily to the dusty floor, like his strings had been cut. He curled around his bleeding shoulder, struggling to keep breathing through the pain. He was shaking badly, bleeding heavily, and the fingers of his right hand felt like ice. Things were going to go very pear-shaped if he didn't get the upper hand, and  _fast_.

Meg pressed her boot against his shoulder and gave him a nudge, shoved him flat against the dirty floor. She dropped, pinned one bony knee into his bloody shoulder. He cried out, a raspy, breathless and exhausted noise, and snapped the back of his head against the hard floor.

When his vision returned, Meg's amused face was mere inches from his. "You know, I really should send your girlfriend a fruit basket."

He froze, frowned up at her. "What are you – "

"You have a wolf in the henhouse, Dean-o. She came to us. Gave all of you up without even blinking."

Dean's eyes widened, and his entire body twitched. "Bela."

"And they say you're just a pretty face. I really do owe her one for my new toy."

He reached up instinctively to smack the lance from her hands, but she easily lifted it out of his reach and knocked his hand back.

"I'm not talking about this old thing." She gave the lance a look, it's end slicked with his blood, and tossed it far out of reach before turning back to Dean. "I'm talking about you."

At that, he bucked violently, jarring his shoulder in unappreciated ways but not caring as he fought like hell to dislodge the demon, to no avail. On a good day, he knew he stood a fighting chance against the demon. But on the floor with a hole in his shoulder, in a growing pool of his own blood, he was hardly anything more than a nuisance. His right arm was little more than dead weight, flopping uselessly at his side.

"Now, what should we do first?"

Dean gritted his teeth. "How bout I rip you to shreds?"

"Kinky, I like." She shifted, grinding her knee tortuously into his fucked-up shoulder and causing Dean to yelp. "Let's play."


	17. Walk Through the Fire

_I try to understand_

_How we're here again_

_In the middle of the storm_

_There's no way to go_

_But straight through the smoke_

_And the fight is all we know_

* * *

The room they'd put him in was small, windowless, and aggressively beige. The kind of space in the center of an administrative building you'd expect to be unbearably stuffy, but it seemed to be freezing cold in a deliberate sort of way. Like the feds were trying to make him as uncomfortable as possible in the hopes it would make him cooperative. Compliant. To their credit, it was working. The uncomfortable part, at least.

Since being roughly deposited in this room, Sam had run the gamut of emotional reactions to his predicament. At first there'd been panic. With everything that had been going on it had been a long time since he and Dean rehearsed their caught-by-the-cops doomsday scenario. In fact, now that he thought about it, the last time they'd gone over it had been before Dean travelled from the future. He doubted any story would come anywhere close to matching at the moment.

After the first two hours of being handcuffed to the table without sight of a single soul, the initial flush of panic had faded away. In its place had grown some short-lived frustration. It was clear by then that Henriksen didn't have Dean, that they were just sweating him out, so to speak. But as the hours continued to tick by, fear had begun to prickle in Sam's chest. He'd been here way too long without any angelic intervention, or whatever on-the-fly breakout his brother should have put together by now. It had been  _hours_ , and he was still here, at the mercy of the feds' seemingly infinite supply of patience.

And that wasn't good. That meant something had gone sideways in more than a picked-up-by-the-cops kind of way. It was beginning to look like Sam was going to have to orchestrate a breakout of his own, and possibly even come to the rescue of Dean, Cas, or Bobby.

As they carted him out to the squad car parked in front of the hospital, he'd managed to spy Bobby hidden in shadow near the building's entrance. The older hunter had obviously looked less than pleased at the turn of events, suspicious even. But as far as Sam could tell, he was the only one currently in custody.

A door behind him opened, and the sound caused Sam to jump, pulling him violently from his thoughts.

"You know, I underestimated you guys at the bank, then again at the jail. I didn't count on you being smart. But now – now I know better."

He set his jaw, watched stonily as the agent pulled a chair up to the table and sat across from him. With a satisfied, confident smile, Henriksen placed a folder on the table and opened it up.

From the angle, Sam couldn't exactly read the text on the pages, but he could clearly make out his brother's picture clipped at the top of the file. He took that in and raised his gaze to the FBI agent, choosing to remain silent, to be the one who would now bide his time and wait to see what the next move was going to be.

Henriksen tapped his fingers on the tabletop, studying Sam carefully. "I know all about you, Sam. Straight A student with a full ride to Stanford. Despite all the moving around you did as a kid. Pre-Law. One-seventy-four on your LSAT."

Sam was surprised the agent had dug that deep and taken the time to learn such an ultimately small and insignificant piece of information from his past, and it apparently showed on his face.

"Oh, yeah." Henriksen straightened in chair, squaring his shoulders. He looked pleased, maybe even amused, that he had caught Sam slightly off-guard. "I know every possible thing there is to know about you."

All things considered, Sam highly doubted that, but refrained from pointing it out. He clenched his jaw, glared stonily across the table.

"What I don't know is why you'd throw all that away to follow around a sick, twisted guy like your brother."

Sam rolled his cuffed hands into fists but refused to respond, unwilling to rise to the bait being offered up by the agent.

Henriksen sighed, probably disappointed, and leaned in conspiratorially. "I'm gonna level with you, Sam. Your brother – he's going away from the rest of his life. Supermax in Nevada, isolation in a soundproof windowless cell so small that, between you and me, is probably unconstitutional."

That was a threat Sam couldn't be sure was empty, but he didn't want to give the man any indication that his words were affecting him, instead dropped his eyes to the file in front of him. He swallowed uneasily, and his heart rate picked up at the thought of anyone being stuck in such a place, much less his brother.

Henriksen paused for a moment, a long stretch of silence that served to drive home the desolation of the threat. "That doesn't have to be your fate, Sam," he said finally. "You're still going away, but instead of supermax for the rest of your life, perhaps we can work something out."

Sam looked up sharply, gaze narrowed. "You want me to flip on my own brother?"

The agent cocked his head, lifted a shoulder. "You can't choose your family, Sammy. But you tell us where he's hiding, and I'll tell the DA you helped us out."

Sam snorted softly and looked away. It was a good thing his hands were cuffed and chained to the table, or he might have popped the man in the mouth for suggesting such a thing – federal agent or not. He wasn't yet sure how he was going to get out of this mess, but he also knew there was no way in hell he'd turn on his brother,  _ever_. Even if he did know where Dean was.

He'd settled on something a little less felony, was just about to tell the agent to go screw himself when the lights in the room flickered. As he raised his eyes to the ceiling, a bulb popped.

_Well, that can't be good._

000000

A splash of icy water viciously ripped Dean from the comforting gray oblivion he'd been enveloped in. His hands jerked reflexively to brush the water from his face but were stopped short as zip ties dug painfully into his wrists.

_Shit._

He flexed his fingers, stretched as much as he could to test the give of his bindings—not a whole hell of a lot—and his situation—SNAFUBAR; situation normal: all fucked up beyond any recognition. The ties tethered his hands to the chair, pulling his arms behind his back at an agonizing angle. He bit down on his lip as his abused right shoulder screamed for relief and his head pounded mercilessly.

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

That sickeningly sweet voice sent a rush of adrenaline through Dean, and he shook his head roughly, knocking water droplets from his face as he tried to get his eyes to focus. It took a frustratingly long amount of time for the blurry image in front of him clear up, revealing the form of the demon he knew as Meg. Waking tied up to a chair hadn't been a promising sign, but he'd been really hoping that whole encounter with a demon that held a serious grudge against him had just been some figment of an overtaxed mind.

But Dean wasn't that lucky, and his reality had always been worse than his nightmares.

Meg tossed a metal pail into the corner of the room, where it bounced loudly off the rotted wall and kicked up a plume of dust as it clattered to the concrete floor. "And here I was worried you were gonna sleep all day."

"Meg." Dean smiled tightly, but just as sweetly. "I'm going to tear you into tiny little pieces."

"Aw." She smiled as she moved closer. He wanted to act unaffected by her presence but found himself pulling away as she lowered herself onto his lap. "Keep talking dirty, it makes my meatsuit all dewy."

Dean leaned back as far away from her as the chair would allow, twisting his screaming shoulder at an unbearable angle. "Gross." He kept the pain from his face, wrinkled his nose. "What do you want?"

Encouraged, she leaned closer, laying her arms across Dean's shoulders, and a grunt escaped him as she pressed against his wounds. "I told you, Dean-o. You're on everyone's Christmas list this year. Lilith knows about your time-traveling. She knows you've played this game before." Meg tilted her chin. "Seals breaking, and all that."

He recoiled. Hot anger flared in his chest, intense enough to momentarily suppress the pain in his arm. "How do . . . was there some freakin' newsletter I missed?"

She lifted a shoulder coyly. "We had our suspicions before, rumors floating around the locker room. But it was your girlfriend that spilled all the juicy details."

"Bela," Dean growled. He had never trusted the thief, not for a moment, not really. But he'd remembered how she had begged for help, how she'd sobbed into the phone and gave up the name of the demon who held his contract in a last bid to do. . . something. Maybe she thought it would save her somehow, using her last breaths to help someone else. Maybe she just liked causing trouble and stirring the pot. It's not like the information had been enough to keep him out of Hell.

But it had been that memory he used to allowed her to stick close by, maybe even to justify it. She'd seemed genuinely shaken by all that had transpired, and willing to help them find a way to take out a common enemy. Bela wasn't an idiot, but she was as self-serving as they came. She had played her part and he had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

And now? Now, he was definitely going to kill Bela the next time he saw her.

"We didn't even have to hunt her down. She came to us all on her own, ready to give you up in exchange for returning her soul." The demon's eyes twinkled. "She was even generous – or desperate – enough to tell us you split up. That Sammy and the old man —"

"I swear if you touched him —" Dean bucked wildly against the chair, heart thudding painfully, bindings cutting into the flesh of his wrists. No two ways about it – he was going to flay that British bitch with a cheese grater the next time he saw her.

Meg smirked, pushed down on the arm she had perched over his injured right shoulder until he stilled with a harsh intake of breath. "Sorry, Dean, but little Sammy is dead."

His jaw clenched, and his gaze bore into hers. "You're lying," he said, voice catching in spite of himself.

Meg pursed her lips, clearly enjoying the pain she was wringing from him, in whatever form she could. "Am I?" She leaned even harder against the wound, and he gasped, blinked roughly.

"Yeah." He drew as much confidence into the words as he could. "I know you didn't kill Sam. You still need him." It was true, they needed Sam to break the last seal, still needed Sam to act as Lucifer's vessel for the big throw down, but he wasn't sure how much of that they actually knew, and Lilith had made it pretty clear last time around that she wanted Sam's head on a pike.

"We aren't interested in Boy Wonder. Not anymore." She slid off his lap, standing up and moving out of his line of sight.

The hair on the back of Dean's neck stood on end as he struggled to place her in the room from only the sound her shuffling footsteps somewhere behind him. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, not wanting to give her that sort of power.

"There's a new player on the field."

"What new player?" Dean ran through a quick list in his pounding head, trying to put things in order, to think of anyone who could do the same things as Sam, but all the special kids Alistair tainted with his blood had died in Cold Oak. He'd made sure it was over, had scoured an entire database worth of people who lost their mother at six months old in any freak accident he could think of, and everyone that fit the profile was already dead, in one way or another.

"Aw, can't give up the big surprise. Not yet at least." She stopped behind him, leaning forward so he could feel her hot, rotted breath against his ear. "The important thing here is that your brother is dead, Dean. I did it myself while you were napping." She said in a cruel, cold tone. "Made your surrogate daddy watch. You know he begged for your life. Not his, but yours. Asked me to spare you before I slit his throat from ear to ear, and enjoyed the rush of his warm blood over my fingers. Then I did the same to Bobby. They're all dead."

Dean slammed his head back, smashing it against the demon's nose. She stumbled back, hand clutched to her nose and mouth. As satisfying as it was to land a hit, to smirk as blood dripped through her fingers and from her chin, he knew he hadn't accomplished anything.

"That hurt, Dean." She stated as if scolding a child for playing too roughly, and wiped blood from her palm onto her jeans.

"Yeah, well screw you bitch." Dean could feel his chest clench tightly, his mouth dry and heart racing. There was no way his brother could be dead. Not after everything he'd done, everything he went through to protect his brother. He  _needed_  her to be lying, to be playing him, toying with him. They couldn't be dead. Without them, he wasn't . . . he couldn't . . . It just wasn't a possibility, but even as Dean thought about her words, a deep, black pit opened in his stomach.

Meg came to a stop somewhere on his left side, smirked as she pressed her foot against the left side of his chair and gave it a hard shove.

With both his hands and feet secured to the chair, Dean had no hope of breaking the fall as it tipped to the side. A wall of white flashed up between him and the word as his injured shoulder took the full weight of the fall, an unforgiving impact against concrete that caused a scream to rip from his lips before he could stop it.

His vision cleared to Meg kneeling in front of him, a grin splitting her face. "Oh, baby, I have every intention of screwing you, just not in the way your hoping. Or maybe you are."

He didn't trust himself to speak and instead blew air out between clenched teeth, trying to tamp down and control the fire consuming his right side.

"But first, a little Q&A."

Dean snorted, shook his head. He clamped his lips together, still struggling to catch his breath.

She raised her eyebrows. "What?"

He chuckled. "You really . . . think I'm . . . gonna give you . . . anything?"

"No." Meg leaned in close, eyes gleaming. "In fact, I'm kinda hoping you don't. It would ruin the mood."

00000

_Well, that can't be good._ Sam flinched as another bulb popped overhead, leaving the room half-lit, only two working bulbs remaining on the far side of the room.

Henriksen looked up to the ceiling, his forehead creased in confusion. Whatever the fed thought was going on – crappy wiring in a crappy small-town building, power fluctuations due to the storm blowing in – Sam had a feeling he was pretty damn far off the mark.

The light they had left flickered one more time, then a trenchcoated figure appeared in the room directly to Sam's left. The only thing kept Sam from jumping straight out of his seat were the handcuffs still tethering him to the table.

Henriksen, on the other hand, did shoot out of his seat, immediately groping for the gun at his hip. "Who the hell are you and how did you . . ." he trailed off, Glock in hand, clearly at a loss of how to explain what had just happened.

"My name is Castiel, and I'm an angel of the lord," Cas answered quickly and impatiently. He sighed heavily and waved a hand. The gun disappeared from the agent's grip, and Henriksen staggered back a step, nearly tripping over his chair, as the angel turned to Sam. "We have a problem."

"Yeah." Sam gestured with his cuffed hands. "No kidding." Despite the truckload of worry he still had for his brother's current whereabouts and condition, he couldn't help but feel some flush of relief from Castiel's presence. He lifted his chained hands, raised his eyebrows. "Can you?"

"Of course." Cas waved his hand over the cuffs, and they disappeared from Sam's wrists as easily as Henriksen's gun.

"Did you say you're an angel?" Henriksen had a hand up in the air between them, eyes wide and roaming the small room, confused and suspicious.

Sam smirked, rubbing at his wrist. For a man that seemed to think he knew everything about everyone, the fed was clearly having a difficult time logically explaining the angel's sudden appearance.

Cas lifted his face toward the ceiling, looking more exasperated than Sam had ever seen the angel. "Yes," He lowered his narrowed gaze to Henriksen. "A poor example of one, but yes. An angel of the lord."

"Angel?" Henriksen dropped a hand to his hip, dragged the other down his face. His eyes remained wide, bewildered but not denying. "As in . . . wings and a harp?"

"No, I don't have a harp. I don't know why everyone-"

"Cas," Sam barked, drawing the angel's attention back to him, and to the real issue at hand. He was ready to bust out of here, like yesterday. "What the hell's going on?"

"It's Dean."

Those two words were more than enough to cause Sam's heart to plummet down into his stomach. He swallowed roughly. "What about him?"

"I believe Lilith has him."

"You believe? As in you don't know?" An angry heat warmed Sam's chest as he stepped toward the angel. "Cas, how—"

"I don't know for sure," Cas replied stonily, raising a hand. "When we arrived at the boarding house there was a demon waiting. Before I could tell who it was, they used an angel banishing sigil."

Sam frowned. "What boarding house? I thought you guys were gonna check out the Episcopal church?"

Cas hesitated before answering, rolled his lips and averted his gaze. "Dean was worried you'd try to follow us."

Sam laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head. "So, he lied. Of course he did." He walked a few steps away into the still-lit half of the room, feeling a sudden pulse behind his eyes. "And now a demon, possibly even Lilith, has him." He turned on his heel back to Castiel, jabbing a finger at the angel. "You were supposed to be watching him. I knew this was gonna happen. This is exactly why I didn't want to split up. But of course, Dean knows better. Dean always knows better." He dragged his hands over his face. "Damn it!"

"Wh – hold on," Henriksen spoke up. Sam had completely forgotten the man was even in the room. At least he hadn't attempted to slip past them for backup, though it wasn't a real threat. It was doubtful Cas would give him the opportunity to even  _think_ about it before giving the agent the two-finger sleep tap. "A demon. Has your brother?"

Sam ignored him, rolling his eyes as he focused his attention solely on the angel. "Do we know where they are?"

Cas shook his head. "Not yet. I went to the hospital to retrieve you and Bobby before returning to the boarding house. When I did, Bobby informed me that you had been arrested. He's heading to the house now."

"You think Dean might still be there?" Sam asked, hope springing in his gut. If Dean was still there, even caught by Lilith, then they stood a good chance of saving him, quickly. Then Sam could murder the lying jackass himself.

"It's possible, but we should go now."

"Hold on." Henriksen moved forward, reaching out to grab the angel. "No one is going anywhere until I get some—"

In a blink, the room shifted from the dully lit, windowless room to a near-pitch, moldy-smelling boarding house.

"—answers," Henriksen finished. He stumbled away from them, looking around the area as he attempted, once more, to process what had just happened to him.

Sam frowned at the sight of the agent. There was no way Castiel had intended to bring the FBI agent along for the ride, but there were far more important things to worry about. Like his stubborn, jackass of a brother who was now MIA.

Before he could say anything, Bobby turned the corner into another hallway, the blood-covered lance of Michael in one hand.

"Bobby," Sam greeted wearily, shoulders dropping in relief at the sight of the older hunter even as the sight of the weapon kicked his heart rate up a few notches.

Bobby turned in his direction and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short as he noticed the fed in the room, looking confused but oddly calm. He raised an eyebrow. "Making friends?"

Sam looked at Henriksen then shrugged. "Long story," he said dismissively. They would deal with the agent later, whatever that might mean for them. Or him.

"Uh-huh." Bobby nodded once but made no further comment on the matter. He turned back toward the angel, gestured around the dark house. "I thought you were supposed to check out some church."

"Dean lied," Sam said through gritted teeth. The anger from knowing his brother had done so – whether or not he'd had good intentions – still heated his blood and aggravated the rising ache in his skull.

"Dean was trying to protect you," Cas spoke up.

"Yeah, well, a lot of good that did him," Sam threw back hotly.

Bobby patted the air between them. "You can chew your brother out later, Sam. Right now, let's just worry about finding him." He gestured with the lance. "Because they might've been here, but the only thing here now is this and—" Bobby hesitated for a moment, swallowing thickly. "And a lot of blood."

Sam sucked in a breath, gaze drawn to the blood-slicked tip of the weapon in the older hunter's grip. His heart dropped into his stomach, and his mind spun, trying to figure the likelihood that the blood belonged to the demon and not his brother. Figured the odds weren't great, given the fact that none of them had heard from Dean.

"What can I do?"

Sam turned sharply in the direction of Agent Henriksen. "What?" he demanded. This was the same man who not ten minutes ago was threatening to lock his brother up in a windowless cell for the rest of his life, a man who had presumably just had his life rocked learning of the existence of both angels and demons, and had accidentally hitched a ride with Cas through space. He should have been curled in the fetal position in a corner, or attempting to fight his way away from them. There was no way Sam had just heard him offer to  _help_.

Henriksen lifted a shoulder and gestured toward Cas. "A man—an  _angel_ , just showed up from nowhere in the middle of an interrogation, and now I'm standing—" He looked around the house. "I don't even know where we are, but it's not the town hall. So, yeah, sign me up as a believer, 'cause either I'm hallucinating, or your brother owes me the biggest I told you so ever."

In spite of the direness of the situation, Sam cracked a smile. "Dean does like to say 'I told you so.'"

The agent nodded, like he'd expected nothing less. "So, how do we find him?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for anyone interested, I mentioned this in my Undone tag but thought I would put it out here as well. My partner in crime conned me into making a Facebook page where I may post snippets from chapters I'm working on, or updates. The link is in my bio so feel free to check it out or send a friend request.


	18. Bad Dream

Feels like I'm frozen

Nowhere to run, nowhere to run from here

These walls are closing

Closing me in

Wearing me thin with fear

Wake me up

Won't you wake me up?

Caught in a bad dream

* * *

Shortly after Castiel brought Dean back, right before they took off to find and talk to God, the angel had marked them, engraved a series of sigils into their ribs that would keep them hidden from every angel and demon in creation. Sam had understood the need to keep demons from finding them, but the fact they needed to be hidden from angels as well had come as a surprise. When he asked the others what he was missing, he received nothing in the way of a satisfactory response. Castiel simply told him that it was necessary, and Dean had shrugged him off with a "better safe than sorry." He'd been frustrated, but ultimately let the matter drop, resigning himself that this was just one secret between the two, one more question to which he would never receive a straight answer.

It was those very sigils that were not only now preventing the angel from finding Dean, but were also keeping even the most sophisticated locator spell from finding him. Sam's brother has been MIA for almost twelve hours, and he was nearly suffocating from the swell of panic in his chest. They'd scoured New Harmony for any hint of where Dean was or who could have taken him, but they'd come away empty-handed. They didn't have the slightest hint where he was or what had happened to him. There was only the unsettling amount of blood left behind where Cas had last seen him, coating the pointed tip of the lance, smeared on the wall, puddled on the floor.

Grim-faced, Cas had immediately burned the blood away. Sam felt gut-punched by the finality of such an act, but the angel said it was dangerous to leave any trace of the blood behind due to the infection Dean had been carrying. Was still carrying.

Henricksen had offered to run a DNA sample off the secondary smear of dried blood that had made up the angel banishing sigil. It wouldn't tell them who the demon was that had snatched his brother, but it would at least give them a face to start looking for. Sam wasn't entirely sure what to do with that, how comforted he should feel. But, as Bobby had said,  _it's better than nothing,_ and he wasn't wrong.

After a fruitless, exhausting search of a full city block, Bobby had suggested they retire back to the bunker to retreat, regroup, and plan. Once they reached the bunker, they were met with yet another unpleasant surprise: a note left by Bela. It didn't say much, but enough. She had given information to Lilith in exchange for the contract for her soul. She had also been the one to tip off the FBI to his location. Sam had crumpled the piece of paper in a tight fist and clenched his jaw to the point of pain.

Bela had done this. Betrayed them all – betrayed  _Dean_ – when he had saved her. When Sam found the thief – and he  _was_  going to find her, right after he got Dean back – he was going to kill her. Dead.

A shrill tone pulled Sam from his thoughts. He straightened in his chair, rubbed both hands over his face as he reacquainted himself with the bunker's dim library. Across the table, Bobby answered his phone, pressing the speaker button so he and Castiel could hear the call. Sam shoved aside a notepad lined with contacts and leaned in over the table.

Henriksen's voice crackled out from the small speaker, " _Got a match for your . . . demon. Can't believe I just said that._ "

"That was fast," Bobby replied, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair.

" _Yeah, well, it helps to be the FBI._ "

"What did you find?" Sam pressed impatiently. He didn't have time for banter while Dean's life was at stake.

Sam could hear a faint sound of typing in the background before Henricksen answered.

" _Sending you a picture now. Records say her name was Rachel Coal, twenty-three, moved to LA about a year ago._ "

Sam shoved his chair back with a violent screech of wood against concrete, hurried to the next table to grab his laptop from where he'd left it when they set out to kill Lillith. Less than a day ago, though it seemed like it had been forever. He heard the bleep as the email arrived and wasted no time opening the attachment. He didn't recognize the women in the picture, turned to Castiel in hopes the angel might know something,  _anything_. The smallest lead, that's all they needed, but the look that crossed Cas' face filled his stomach with dread.

Bobby noticed the look as well. "Cas?"

"The demon," Castiel started hesitantly, as though trying to recall some long-buried information. "She goes by the name Meg. I believe you've already run into her in this time."

"Meg?" That cold ball of dread sitting in Sam's stomach grew as he remembered their last run in with the demon.

He hadn't ever been able to recall everything from the week he spent possessed by the demon, but he did remember the highlights. What he . . . what that demon did to Dean, and . . . Sam realized with a swell of terror that Meg was going to kill his brother. She'd already had Dean for twelve hours, and that was a damn long time. Even if they found him in the next twenty minutes, it was doubtful his brother was going to walk away from this.

000000

Meg tilted her head, danced teasing fingers around the hole in his shoulder as she met his gaze.

He did his best to keep it from his expression, but Dean's stomach dropped all the way to the floor. He didn't want her to know she was getting to him but couldn't help grinding his shoulder blades against the hard back of the chair in an effort to keep as much distance as possible between them.

His shoulder was already a veritable cornucopia of agony, and he really didn't need the demon literally poking around in it anymore. After she'd knocked the chair over, Meg had left him there for what had to be hours. Long enough to feel the first real pangs of fear that he was going to die here, that the others wouldn't find him in time, that the demon's patience would expire before his willpower. Long enough that he panicked, thrashing in the chair on his side and knocking his head against the damp concrete. Long enough for his entire right arm to go completely numb, which made it all the more painful when she unceremoniously jerked the chair back upright, causing feeling to return to the limb in an agonizing rush of blood.

She laughed at his obvious discomfort, both then and now, a cloying sound that he felt in his molars. "How bout we go nice and slow, Dean?" she asked, the pad of her thumb pressing against the torn skin.

He saw red, his bound feet pushing against the floor in a useless effort to escape the pressure.

"Like pulling the wings off a fly." she continued loudly, voice echoing through his pounding head. "Now, are you ready to play yet?"

He tried to laugh in her face but choked on it. It felt like her entire thumb was in his shoulder, and bile threatened to rise in his throat.

"All you have to do is answer some questions," she said, voice sickeningly sweet as she slowly pressed harder against the wound. "and then I'll put you out of my misery." She paused, lifting her gaze toward the ceiling before shrugging a shoulder. "Maybe."

"Fuck you, bitch," he ground out between tightly clenched teeth.

Meg smiled sweetly, and then Dean's entire world was reduced to a hazy sunburst of pain.

000000

"She's going to kill him," Sam said with grim certainty, feeling the weight of the words as they sat heavily in the air. The panic already blooming in his chest grew, his tenuous hold slipping further.

"Maybe not," Castiel replied, lips pressed into a tight line.

Sam snorted, stepped away from the table. He couldn't breathe. "Cas, I don't think you understand. Meg  _hates_  Dean. Not just in a pissed her off a bit sort of way, I mean she really  _hates_ him. The last time . . . she was in my head and I . . . " Sam swallowed thickly, not wanting to revisit those things he had felt while possessed, but he needed the angel to understand what they were dealing with. What they were at risk of walking into. "I felt what she felt toward Dean, and all she wanted was to hurt him. She wanted to see him utterly broken."

Bobby had been there, on the outskirts of the scene as it played out between Meg and Dean in his study, and he sucked in a breath. Cas frowned deeply, as though something was just occurring to him, and stepped away from them.

"There's something you're not telling us." Bobby narrowed his eyes at the angel.

Castiel tilted his head back. "Since Dean's return, I've heard a few . . . rumors, whispers among the other angels." He dropped his gaze back to them.

"What sort of rumors?" The edge in Bobby's voice cutting through the air, anger coloring it. Sam knew how he felt; it seemed like they were always the last to know.

"There are those that wanted to . . . " The angel paused, searching for an acceptable word. " _Question_  Dean about what he knows of the future. It would be foolish to think there aren't some demons that want the same, and I have no doubt Lilith is one of them."

"You're telling me that you heard rumors that some angels or whatever might be after Dean?" Sam stepped toward Castiel, anger pushing past his panic. He embraced the feeling. Anger was familiar, anger was something he could work with. "Don't you think this is information you should have shared before now?"

Cas narrowed his eyes. "I warned Dean about it shortly after his return, but he didn't believe it was worth worrying about." He looked away, and Sam caught the hint of regret in the corners of his eyes.

"Of course, he didn't." Bobby shook his head. He scuffed a hand through his beard, frowned thoughtfully. "But if they wanted Dean for his knowledge of the future, then why aren't they after you for the same?"

"The other angels aren't aware I have the memories of my future self. They only know something is . . . different. I thought it wise to hide the information from my kin."

Bobby nodded, neither agreeing or disagreeing. "All right. If Meg is working for Lilith and trying to get a peek at the cards, then that means—"

" - she'll keep him alive." Sam finished, but the realization did nothing to ease the overwhelming sense of dread in his stomach. "We just have to find her before—" he sucked in a breath and bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to finish the sentence. Not wanting to finish the  _thought_.

A heavy, ominous silence fell over the library, until a tinny, electronic cough reminded them that Henriksen was still on speaker phone.

"Henriksen." Sam moved closer to the phone, braced his arms on the tabletop. "You ID'ed her. Now we need to find her."

" _I can post the picture on a wanted list, send it out to local police stations with a warning not to approach, just call if they see her."_

Bobby folded his arms over his chest, his frown deepening. "Not a bad idea, but if she finds out she's been made, she might just swap meatsuits, take Dean and run. Then we'd be back to square one."

Sam pushed up from the table and spun away from the other, locked his hands behind his neck and blew out a slow breath. "Maybe not."

"Come again?"

Sam turned back to face the older hunter. "If she does switch bodies, then she'll have to leave this one behind and find a new one. That would give us an idea of where she was, maybe a lead on where she's going?" He knew he was grasping at straws, but that was all they had. "It also leaves room for her to make a mistake."

Bobby took a moment to think it through, then nodded. "It's thin, but it's better then what we got, which is a whole lot of nothing." He reached out for the cell phone, dragged it closer. "How long would it take you to get her picture out?"

" _Less than an hour."_

Sam clenched his jaw, nodded. For the first time, the faintest sliver of hope flirted with the edges of the panic in his chest. "Do it."

00000

Dean's head snapped back with enough force that he was sure he'd feel it in his neck later. Provided there was a later. He shifted his jaw, trying to lessen the pain throbbing along the side of his face. He turned his head to the side, spat out a mouthful blood before turning back. "That all you got?"

Meg smiled widely, cracking bloodied knuckles. "Oh baby, I'm just getting warmed up." The demon stood over him, her body pressed uncomfortably close to his. She ran her fingers through his hair before grabbing a handful and jerking his head back. "Now, once more. Did the angels stop Lilith from breaking all the seals last time?"

"Get bent."

She tightened her grip in his hair and landed a vicious left hook into his shoulder.

Dean bit down on the tail end of the scream that burst out, smashing his teeth together. Spots covered his vision as he blew breath harshly between his teeth, trying to blink his hazy, red vision clear while moving as little as possible under her ruthless hold. Somewhere in the distance, he registered the first  _plip plips_ of falling rain.

"Let's try a different question then. Michael."

Dean frowned. "What?" he asked breathlessly.

"Michael. Surely, you found his vessel in your time, and I want to know who it is."

Dean blinked a few times as his mind sluggishly caught up to the question, taking much longer than he was comfortable with, worrying he was giving himself away. "Michael?"

"His vessel," she repeated, emphasizing each syllable. She released him with harsh shove and stepped back, studied the blood across her knuckles. "Lilith wants him out of the game."

"The big smackdown," Dean said knowingly, wincing as he shifted on the chair.

Meg grinned, tongue rolling across her lower lip. "Not if we have anything to say about it. Without his true vessel, Michael won't stand a chance."

Dean shook his head wearily, stopping as his skull throbbed with the movement. It had never occurred to him that the demons didn't know the identity of Michael's vessel until after Lucifer had risen, and he couldn't even be sure that they had known anything beyond the fact he was meant to stop Lucifer. It was Zachariah and Gabriel that told he and Sam that they were Michael's and Lucifer's vessels.

In any case, he was pretty sure his life depended on Meg – and Lilith – not learning that particular tidbit of information. "You're wasting your time." Dean swallowed thickly, wincing at the coppery tang of blood. "We never found the vessel."

She dropped her hand to her side and rolled her eyes. "How stupid do I look?"

Dean couldn't help himself. He smiled tightly. "Honestly?"

Meg's nostrils flared, and she stalked out of sight around the back of the chair.

He held perfectly still, hardly daring to draw a breath. His smartass mouth had a habit of getting him into trouble, and this demon was looking for any excuse to cause him pain.

Without warning, the chair was tipped violently backwards, and all of Dean's muscles tensed. Meg dragged him effortlessly down the hall, the legs of the chair jumping as they skidded noisily across the concrete. The rough movement tugged at his wounded shoulder and he bit his lip against a yelp, refused to show this bitch any of the pain she was looking for.

The two front legs of the chair crashed back down with a violent jolt, and sunbursts exploded behind Dean's eyes. Fire erupted in his jarred shoulder, and he gasped. The next sensation to register was an icy, wet slap against his cheeks, his forehead. Blinking, he tilted his chin up, saw the charcoal gray matte of heavy cloud cover through a hole in the roof. Fat, frigid raindrops impacted his skin like miniature bullets.

He lowered his chin as Meg stepped back into view, glaring as raindrops slipped from his lashes. "This the best you've got?" he asked with a sneer. But despite the bravado, the first shivers were already wracking his abused body.

0000000

Sam paced the length of the bunker's library, nervously gnawing his thumbnail down to a jagged bit in between throwing impatient looks at Bobby. The older hunter was talking with one of his contacts, hoping for  _anything_  that might point them in the direction of his brother or the demon holding him.

In the hours after Henriksen's call, Sam had burned through everyone he knew, every contact left in his father's journal, every one of the few friends they'd made over the past three years. No one knew anything. About Dean. It wasn't that no one had seen demonic signs or heard of unusual happenings, but with seals breaking and the angels and demons preparing for the end of times, everything was going to literal Hell in a handbasket, and they were looking for a blip in a room full of static.

He'd been hoping for a lead to follow, and now they had two dozen signs of demonic presence across the country, but nothing specific enough to think it was Meg or Dean. There were too many strange happenings, too many omens for he and Bobby to chase down or set other hunters onto, even if they found someone willing to join in on this wild goose chase. Finally, Cas had taken on the task of searching the locations himself. It was the most efficient form of travel. Even if it left him and Bobby with little to do but field calls. Moving between each location and lead they got, trying to find something more solid to grasp, but with Dean warded and Meg more than likely hidden, even Castiel was having a hard time covering all the bases. No matter what method they tried, the search was taking too long. His brother had been missing for more than a day already.

Bobby lowered his head with a heavy sigh. "All right, yeah. Let me know." He closed the phone and set it on the table, dragged his hand across his face, sighing wearily.

Neither of them had slept since Dean went missing. Sam wasn't sure he could even if he wanted to. He paused in his pacing and leaned against the table. He couldn't do this, this waiting. His pulse thrashed in his ears. His breath sounded too loud, and he could feel the walls of the bunker closing in. He wanted out of this cave of dead ends, wanted anything other than this agonizing waiting game.

Bobby was watching him intently from across the table. "Sam . . . "

Sam shook his head, lifted a hand. "Bobby, please don't tell me to calm down."

The older hunter frowned, but his voice softened. "We'll find him, Sam. It's only been a day."

Sam pushed up from the table. "No, Bobby, it's  _already_  been a whole day," he snapped. "Twenty-four hours of Dean in the hands of someone who—" he cut himself off, pressed his lips together. He couldn't go there, couldn't think about that. He took a deep breath, trying to control the fear and panic that were threatening to spill out. He had to remain focused, had to keep his head clear, or he'd be of no use to his brother.

"We'll find him," Bobby repeated softly.

Sam dragged a hand through his hair and nodded. He dropped into a chair at the table and pulled his laptop closer, but before he got a chance to do anything the sound of Bobby's ringing phone cut through the thick air.

The name on the screen had the older hunter putting the call immediately on speaker.

" _Cedar Falls, Iowa."_ Henriksen's voice broke through the air, wasting no time and cutting straight to the point.  _"Some local hikers found our girl – well, her body – on Deadmans Island in Black Hawk Park."_

Sam exchanged a look with Bobby before jumping into action. "We're on our way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the week late posting, life and stuff, it's a hazard of living.


	19. Don't Look Down

_Wakin' up to darkness,_

_The fear is closin' in,_

_The last steps are the hardest,_

_Here we are, here we are again._

* * *

He lost track of time under the frigid, relentless downpour. If Dean had to guess, it had been late afternoon, maybe early evening when Meg dragged him under the rotted, collapsed section of roofing. As he watched, the sky he could see through the hole above his head had turned pitch black, starless and covered with thick, heavy clouds before finally fading into the mottled gray that signaled the beginning of a miserable morning. The rain was still coming just as heavy, no relief in sight. An ominous crack of thunder rolled overhead as if to punctuate the thought.

His back and legs were stiffening up from sitting in the same spot all night, but if there was one positive to be found in the inventive torture of Meg's, it was that the constant torrent of icy rainwater had long-since left Dean's wrecked shoulder blissfully numb. On the other hand, it had also numbed everything else, to the point he was no longer shivering.

_Not good, Winchester._

Not for the first time since being left alone, he twisted in the chair, trying to get a lay of the land. Visibility was shit; he could hardly see a foot in front of his own face, let alone get a good gauge on the size of the room. Dean hadn't spotted any windows, and the only point of entry seemed to be the door Meg had dragged him through hours ago. There were some vague shadows along the walls, and he could just barely make out the shape of a desk or table on his left. But nothing was within reach, even if he did have the use of his hands.

Dean bit his lip as he twisted too far and found his shoulder wasn't quite as numb as he'd thought. A white-hot bloom erupted in the torn, abused muscle and he folded against the pain, ragged breaths sawing in and out between clenched teeth until the pain subsided to a more manageable level.

Meg hadn't said a word when she left, just unceremoniously deposited him beneath the hole and stomped away. She wasn't likely to return before the rain let up, and if his string of bad luck continued, that wouldn't be anytime soon.

He had to remind himself not to underestimate the demonic bitch, not to let whatever convenient partnership they might have once shared in his time allow him to forget that she wasn't just another demon getting her rocks off by causing pain. That, like him, she apprenticed under Alistair in Hell. Which meant that what she'd done to him so far barely counted as foreplay. His only saving grace was that if she didn't want him dead, she'd be limited in what she could do to him. At least, until she got tired of asking questions.

He could feel the returning tickles of despair teasing the back of his mind, stoked by the solitude, the chilly jolts of rain sliding down the sides of his face. Thoughts that he would die here, by Meg's impatient hand. That no one would find him before she grew bored of her games. That there was no one left  _to_  find him.

That didn't mean he would crack. He couldn't. Dean wouldn't give her the satisfaction and clung desperately to the hope that the demon was lying, screwing with him. That Sam was out there, okay and pissed and worried and looking for him. Demons lied; he knew that, had once spent the better part of two years trying to convince his brother of it.

And even if the demon was telling the truth, Cas was still out there, and Sam could be brought back. He'd tear both Heaven and Hell apart to do it, if it came to it. He did not come this far just to fail his brother all over again.

Blinking rainwater from his eyes, Dean clenched his jaw and fisted his hands behind his back. He threw his weight forward in an attempt to haul himself, chair and all, away from the hole and out of the rain. The feet scraped noisily against the concrete as the chair moved, but the agonizing wrench of his shoulder pulled him up short, leaving him surfing the waves of some pretty serious pain. He groaned, clamped his teeth down around the sound as a door creaked open somewhere in the house.

Dean's heart pounded against his ribcage as he straightened, craning his neck and squinting into the inky space he assumed was the hallway. The rain continued to fall, hard and freezing cold, pooling in the collar of his tattered t-shirt and soaking him to the bone.

Despite his better judgement, hope surged in his chest and he felt himself give into it. "Sam?" he called tentatively before he had the chance to stop himself.

A laugh filtered through the darkness, drawing nearer. Female, and unfamiliar. He didn't recognize the voice, but he sure as hell recognized that laugh.

_Shit._

00000

The sharp smell of rain and decomposing leaves hit Sam was soon as he stepped out of the car. Fat raindrops beat down against his jacket, soaking through the thick cloth before he even had a chance to take the umbrella offered to him. He mumbled a thanks to Bobby before heading down the sidewalk, the soles of his shoes slapping against puddling water.

Originally, they were meant to meet Henriksen on Deadman's Island, where the body had been found, but a heavy and relentless downpour had washed any remaining evidence from the area and made it all but pointless to trudge out in the rain-soaked forest. Instead, the frustrated agent told them to meet him at the local PD station.

Sam's fingers tightened around the grip of the umbrella as they approached the station, as he realized they hadn't discussed a cover story or what aliases they'd use to get pass the local PD. They hadn't even brought any IDs with them from the car. He silently cursed himself for not thinking any further than his brother and the possibility of finding him. Or having something –  _anything_  – solid to follow.

Temples pounding from stress and lack of sleep, he turned to say something about it to Bobby, but before he got a word out, Henriksen pushed open the door and waved them inside. Sam pursed his lips but remained silent as he deposited his umbrella on a small rack in the entryway and followed the agent past the front counter and deeper into the building.

It wasn't until they were alone and out of the earshot of officers that Henriksen answered Sam's unasked question.

"Told 'em you were consultants." He shrugged, folded his arms across his chest. "Not technically a lie." He gave Sam a sidelong glance, lowered his voice. "But if anyone asks,  _your_  last name is Jones. Seeing as you and your brother are still on an FBI Most Wanted list."

Sam lifted his chin, nodded. He hadn't expected that mess to be cleaned up just from showing one agent the truth about what was out there, about what he and Dean had been accused of. He imagined the FBI Most Wanted list was something like the no-fly lists. You could be removed, theoretically, but you probably had a better chance at singlehandedly achieving world peace.

"Whatcha got for us?" Bobby asked gruffly, pulling Sam from his thoughts.

Henriksen unfolded his arms and gestured to a door on the left, farther down the hall. "In here."

Sam followed the agent into the brightly lit room, a large polished wood table at the center surrounded by several chairs. Already out on the tabletop were several manila folders.

Henriksen shut the door behind them and moved to the table, opened one of the folders and pulled out several pictures. He handed the photos to he and Bobby as he spoke. "Fortunately, before the rain washed everything useful away, local PD was able to get several pictures of the scene. DNA has already confirmed it's the same girl from New Harmony."

Sam looked over a picture of the brunette laying like a broken ragdoll on the forest floor, an obvious hiking trail just a few inches next to the spot she'd been discarded. No attempt had been made to hide the body, almost as though . . . "She wanted us to find her," he said aloud, a sinking feeling in his gut. The demon had dropped the body on Deadman's Island just next to a well-worn hiking trail, in full view of dozens of passersby. "It's a message. She's toying with us." He raised his gaze to the older hunter, hoping for a disagreement, for anything to alleviate the icy pit forming in his stomach and wrapping around his chest.

Bobby did neither, simply let the papers he was looking at drop to the table. "But why come all the way up here? We must be . . ." He paused, squinting up at the ceiling as he ran some quick math in his head. "Four, five hundred miles from New Harmony?"

"I don't know about demons," Henriksen offered, "but when fugitives are on the run they tend to go to places they've been before, places they feel safe. Maybe there's some sort of connection here. What do you know about her?"

Sam chewed on his lip before dropping the picture he held to the pile. "Not much," he said honestly. "She's the daughter of another demon we—Dean killed a few years back."

"Wait." Henriksen held a hand up, frowning deeply. "Demons have kids?"

"Not in the traditionally sense I think, but . . ." Bobby shrugged.

"Okay," the agent said slowly. He released a long breath. "Anything else?"

Sam scrubbed a hand across his face, feeling frustration build in the form of a pounding behind his eyes. On the surface, the discovered body was a hint, a message, but in the end it was getting them nowhere, just more hours wasted.

Henriksen pursed his lips into a thin line, then gave a short nod. "Well, I have one other thing that  _might_  help." He grabbed another file off the table, flipping it open and sliding it over to Sam and Bobby.

"What's this?" Sam leaned over the table, pulling the file closer.

"Late last night, about thirty minutes north of here, a thirty-six-year-old woman by the name of Keres Miller killed two security guards and put another in the hospital."

He and Bobby exchanged a look, and Sam crossed his arms. "Okay," he encouraged.

"Witness said she was working late, a pretty normal occurrence. One of her co-workers claimed there was an odd black smoke just before Miller, and I quote,  _went completely off the rails_."

Sam sucked in a breath, his pulse quickening. "You think it could be Meg?" he asked the older hunter. Thirty minutes north . . . it was possible.

"It's possible," Bobby answered, echoing Sam's thoughts as he ran a palm against his scruff of beard. He pointed to a notation on the page, turned back to Henriksen with a frown. "Says she stole a couple thousand dollars' worth of product from the company. What sort of product are we talking about?"

00000

The woman who stepped into the room was taller, slim and pale, her white face nearly glowing in the dark room. Her eyes cut into him, like twin lumps of coal. She leaned on the threshold, hands clasped behind her back. In a flash of lightning, Dean saw a wide, red-lipped grin.

"Not quite, Dean. I told you. Your brother is dead." Her tone was nonchalant, like she was simply relaying the time or the weather. "No one is coming for you."

The demon's taunt brought a sharp ache to his chest, but he lifted his chin, refusing to give in to it. He wouldn't – he  _couldn't_ believe Sammy was gone. "What's with the new suit?" Despite his bravado, Dean's voice cracked. He swallowed, shifted his good shoulder.

"What? You don't like?" She straightened, hands still out of view. For whatever reason, the deliberateness of her posture set him more on edge than the meatsuit swap. "I thought maybe you'd like a change of scenery." She turned her head, looking back over her shoulder into the darkness. "My friends like it."

"Friends?" Dean echoed, mind starting to churn wildly. He had a  _bad_ feeling about this, the kind of feeling that he'd learned the hard way to trust.

Meg's grin widened, and that was answer enough. Two massive, hulking forms stepped into the room. Big guys, at least as tall as Sam but thicker, with black eyes. The demons moved toward him wordlessly, and Dean's heart thrummed in his throat as the two giants stepped to either side of him, making it impossible to keep them both in his eyeline.  _Shit._ The hair at the back of his neck stood on end as they disappeared behind him.

"What's the matter, Meg?" He swallowed around a lump in his throat, trying to keep his voice steady and failing miserably. "You giving up already?" He heard the distinct  _shink_ of a switchblade opening behind him and tensed.

A feral smile pulled at her lips, teeth baring. "There's been a slight change of plans, but don't you worry, we're gonna have all kinds of fun."

Dean flinched as cool metal pressed against his wrist, then flicked through the cable tie restraining him. He narrowed his eyes up at Meg, keeping deliberately still as her goons cut the rest of his bonds. He understood completely the position she was putting him in – outnumbered and outgunned – and that frustrating expression on her stolen face –  _don't even think about it._

But he'd never been one to listen to others, and if they wanted to take him down they were going to have to work for it.

He held his breath, waited for the air to shift behind him as the demon straightened, and then Dean wasted no time. He threw back the elbow of his good arm, right into the face of the goon. It  _hurt,_ like connecting with a brick wall, but was enough of a strike to stun the demon and send him stumbling back a few steps. Dean twisted as he stood, grabbing the back of the chair and slamming it into the second demon, rain-weakened wood shattering and splintering at it impacted the demon's upper body.

Dean's shoulder exploded with pain, and he yelped as he staggered back. His right arm trembled dangerously where it hung at his side, but he gritted his teeth and used the pain to fuel his movements. He kicked out as the first demon moved toward him, but the kick never landed, his leg deflected as easily as swatting a fly, knee twisting as he was knocked to the ground. It was all downhill from there; he wasn't moving anywhere near full-speed and had already used up the element of surprise. Before Dean could form his next move, one of the goons grabbed his right arm, tearing a scream from his throat as his arm was twisted up and behind him. The demon yanked up and shoved him forward, slammed him against the edge of a table.

His vision popped and sparked, and he felt tremors wracking his muscles that had nothing to do with the cold. Dean clenched his teeth tightly as he tamped down the urge to hurl, the buzzing tone in his head as he struggled not to pass out. He forced himself to remain as still as possible beneath the demon's agonizing hold on his wrecked arm.

"Did you really think that was gonna work?" Meg leaned down over the table, entering his limited line of sight.

He puffed out a shallow breath, tasted a coppery tang on his lip and was pretty sure his nose was bleeding. The fingers of his left hand curled reflexively against the table, and he pressed down, trying to relieve some of the pressure on his shoulder. It was a fruitless thought, as the demon had him pretty well immobilized, everything from the waist up held down and everything else too stiff or weakened to provide enough leverage.  _Shit._

Dean wrinkled his aching nose. "Sister, you might wanna try some breath mints. Because, seriously—"

She pressed her lips into a thin line and glanced up at the demon over his shoulder. He bit down hard on a cry, his feet scrapped against the ground as the demon wrenched his arm farther. His ears rang, and he blinked back the spots suddenly crowding his vision.

"That's what I love about you, Dean." She brushed fingers through his hair, and he flinched at her touch. "so suicidally stupid."

"It's been said," Dean pressed through gritted teeth, clutching at the table.

"You hunters keep fighting, claiming demons and monsters are the evil ones when, in reality? It couldn't be further from the truth. The things you humans will do to each other. . . it's truly inspiring."

"My God, you like the sound of your own voice."

"Take Keres here for instance." She ignored his comment, gesturing to herself. "She works on military contracts for a company called Cerberus. You know what she does there?"

His back spasmed from the angle, a forearm like a tree limb pressing down against his spine. He bit his lip, once more tasting blood. "I don't suppose the answer is make balloon animals."

Meg smirked. She turned to the other demon, giving a sharp nod.

Before he had a chance to even guess at her intention, the demon goon grabbed his left wrist. He yanked Dean's arm out toward her and pinned it against the table.

"She's a biochemist, currently working on different chemicals that can be used during interrogation of prisoners." Meg lifted her other hand, displaying a large syringe.

Eyes wide, Dean dug deep and bucked wildly against the strong hands pinning him in place, bit back a yelp as his bad arm was tugged and twisted.

She laid the tip of the needle against his forearm and waggled her eyebrows. He jerked as the needle slid under his skin and the unknown substance was pushed into his veins. A chilly zing traveled through his arm, then the sensation faded into nothing.

The demon goons released their hold and Dean tumbled to the ground from the sudden lack of support. He groaned as the fall jarred his shoulder, and he rolled to his back, carefully pulling his bad arm to his chest. He worked his feet under him, meaning to stand, but the room shifted and dipped harshly to the side as soon as he made it to his knees. He looked down at the small needle mark in his arm then up to Meg. He could hardly make out her face; his vision stuttered like a filmstrip, colors blurring together in a nauseating swirl.

"What—" His balance was shot, and he threw out his good hand as he tipped toward the ground. Dean saw Meg move closer, her lips moving, but the sound was warbled. He had no idea what she was saying and was suddenly having a hard time mustering the mental coordination to care. He didn't remember sliding all the way to the floor, but his cheek was pressing against cool, damp concrete, blood from his nose bubbling against his lips as he breathed too loud and too harshly. He twitched, but had no control over the motion, and then there were hands around his arms, hauling him onto unsteady legs.

Dean swallowed thickly as the world rolled and pitched around him. As badly as he wanted to take in his surroundings, he was forced to close his eyes tightly, sucking in a few deep breaths before blinking them open once more. Instead of steadying the scenery, it only seemed to make things worse. The two demon goons flanking him and half-dragging him out of the building weren't helping either. He tried to hold his own weight and get his feet under him, but his limbs felt impossibly heavy and disconnected.

He was tossed roughly into the back of a SUV, hands bound once more, painfully over his head to an anchor on floorboard. Dean's shoulder and face ached, but the pain was muted under a thick blanket of whatever drug Meg had injected him with.

He lost some time, and his stomach rolled as the vehicle jerked forward. Somewhere in the back of Dean's mind, he thought it was odd for a demon to be driving a car. His vision started to fade, and he fought the rising tide of darkness threatening to engulf him. He blinked roughly, trying to clear his vision, but the sweet call of oblivion was too strong, pulling him under.

As the world faded away, Dean caught sight of a sign along the road announcing their departure from Cedar Falls Iowa.


	20. Crack

_Ground cracks further with open wings, torn empty silence_

_grows louder with every single step I take_

_Crack down to the core, my sanities are waning to the fore, can't ignore_

_Can't stop, can't stop I keep on falling_

* * *

Dean's head buzzed dangerously, and he realized belatedly that he'd forgotten to breathe though the fiery agony tearing through his veins. He unlocked his clenched jaw and sucked in a ragged, greedy lungful of air. He panted and sagged in his seat, held up only by the bindings securing his wrists to the arms of the chair.

The fire continued to recede as he rolled his wrists under the steel cable ties. The unyielding metal dug into already raw skin, and he used the pain to ground himself. As whatever Meg had injected him with this time continued to wear off, his head felt cotton-stuffed and detached. Dean's vision swam, his stomach lurched, and he bit down on his bottom lip so harshly and desperately he tasted blood. He closed his eyes and pleaded with himself  _don't puke, don't puke, don't puke_ as he drew long, slow, shaky breaths.

As soon as his stomach settled, and he was past the risk of choking on his own vomit, the shivering started. Violent tremors that wracked Dean's entire body, that set the legs of the chair clattering noisily against the concrete floor. He was freezing, in a serious way, in a teeth-chattering, chest-aching sort of way.

He wasn't sure how long it had been since he first woke in this place, this different but achingly familiar place. Something about the drafty as hell room tugged at the back of his mind. The walls were rotted and falling apart, and he couldn't be sure the ceiling wasn't going to fall in on him at any moment. But being crushed by debris was currently the least of his many problems, he tensed as his biggest problem chose to make a reappearance. He figured she wouldn't wait long after the drug began to wear off before prepping him for another round.

She grinned, and Dean resisted the urge to squirm in his seat as she pulled out another syringe, its barrel half-filled with liquid. An overwhelming sense of dread came over him, causing a cold pit to form in his gut.

Since he woke up, the demon had made good on her threat to take advantage of the knowledge of her new vessel and had experimented with a handful of pilfered drugs. Some caused excruciating pain to rip throughout his entire body, fire raging in his veins, a vice around his organs. This one he recognized from its purplish color; she'd used it only once so far and not for long, but it was the worst of them all. Physical pain, he could handle. He knew what to do with pain, had built up mental defenses over the years. Through Hell, and in the inventive hands of the Hollow Men.

But this stuff. . . it held an entirely different brand of pain, for which there was no coping mechanism, only suffering. It was a mindfuck, causing bone-chilling, gut-twisting hallucinations. And not run of the mill, thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye figments of imagination. These hallucinations took your most awful, painful moments and memories and pushed them even further, made them something else entirely. Something worse. It preyed on your vulnerabilities and tore at your very soul.

Meg's gaze slid from his wide eyes to the syringe in her hand, and her grin broadened. She closed her fist, hiding the dangerous liquid from view. "You ready to play nice yet?"

He swallowed, heart fluttering anxiously in his throat. "Go to hell," he gritted, knowing he'd strike a nerve. "Again."

Her smile disappeared, eyes flashing with anger. She stepped forward and jabbed the needle roughly into his exposed forearm, depressed the plunger and emptied the contents.

Dean gasped, fingers reflexively clenching into a fist as unnatural warmth spread up his arm and toward his chest.

Meg tossed the spent syringe to the floor, where it shattered on impact. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned down to meet his eyes. "How 'bout we try a new game. You tell me what I want to know and I give you the antidote,  _or_  I let you sit here and stew. Then we'll see what lasts longer, the drug or your sanity."

Dean leaned back as far as he could and blinked hard. Last time she'd given him this drug it had taken a few moments before the hallucinations started, but already he could see vague images shuddering on his periphery like a desert mirage. He ripped his gaze away and shifted it to the demon, to the one thing in the room he knew was real. His curled his fingers into a tight fist, nails cutting into his palms.

"Tell me what the last seal is and how we break it."

Dean frowned. "You don't know?" he muttered hoarsely, feeling a pinch in his side that made it nearly impossible to pull in a full breath. The shape next to her stuttered and flickered, a vague outline of blurred colors he couldn't quite make out.

Meg rolled her lips into a tight line, then growled through clenched teeth, "if we knew, I wouldn't be asking."

He had enough time left for one more coherent thought, and he realized it made sense that the demons didn't know about the last seal. It had been nearly two months before Lucifer broke free that Lilith went gone to Sam to make a deal. To stop breaking seals, because it was just then that she found out she wasn't going to survive.

"We will find out," Meg continued. "One way or another. But tell me now and I'll give you the antidote. I might even leave you alone for a few hours." She held up a second capped syringe, waving it in the air coyly. "I promise."

The smell started to hit him then, and Dean shook his head, trying to dislodge the metallic tang of blood and rotting decay. The stench grew stronger, and his stomach rolled as he realized which memory the drug was ransacking. Suddenly, he could feel fire rolling through his once shattered wrist, the concussion thumping in his skull, a sharp stab in his chest with every ragged breath he attempted.

"What's the matter, Dean? See something unsettling?" A smile crept across Meg's face as she glanced over her shoulder, following his hooded gaze.

He slammed his eyes shut as the image came into view, solidified into reality. He didn't want –  _couldn't_ see that again. He couldn't live through it a second time.

Fingers wrapped with bruising force around his jaw and yanked his chin up. Dean's eyes snapped open on instinct, flicking from the demon in his face to the image over her shoulder. He regretted the action immediately. His chest tightened, and his stomach rolled so violently he almost copped it right then and there. He couldn't do this again.  _Anything_  but this.

Dean swallowed thickly, pulled at the metal ties encircling his wrists.

"The seal!" the demon shouted.

He pursed his lips and shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut once more.  _Not real, not real,_ he chanted in his mind, blocking out the image, trying to pretend the smells were anything else. It was just another day on the job, just the macabre perfume that came with hunting, that lingered in their lives. Then the sounds rose in his ears: the wet tearing sound of flesh, the rattling of metal. The  _screams_. The tortured shouts echoed off imaginary walls, surrounding him, digging into Dean and tearing him down to his very soul.

This . . . this was what Heaven and Hell and Hollow Men could never do.

This was Dean Winchester at the end of his rope.

"Stop." He jerked against his bonds, metal cutting into flesh. The bones in his right wrist grated, and he gasped, "stop it." His breath stuttered, the air skipping across his lungs too rapidly. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as stars burst behind his closed eyes. "Stop it!"

Cool fingers trailed along the side of his face, and he flinched away. "Tell me what the last seal is, and I'll make it stop, Dean."

"Lilith," he gritted, unable to trap the answer behind his teeth.

"What about her?" She gripped his chin and jerked his head, causing a sharp pain to reverberate through his whole body and his eyes to blow wide open. He kept his gaze glued to the demon, limbs trembling as he struggled to ignore the image behind her.

"Lilith is the last seal." Dean's aching head spun as he pulled in shallow, painful breaths. "Her death . . . her blood creates the door to Lucifer's cage."

A slow smile spread across Meg's face as she released his jaw. "See, that wasn't so hard." She straightened and turned to walk away.

"Hey!" Dean blurted at her retreating back. His gaze bounced from the hallucination back to the demon, and he rolled his wrists, bit down on a whimper. "You promised." The words spilled forth like a weak, desperate prayer, and he hated himself for them.

Meg stopped, lifted her head and tapped a finger against her chin, as if trying to remember something important. She smiled that sickening smile as she withdrew the syringe from her pocket and turned to walk back to him.

With the needle poised over his forearm, she leaned in, her dark gaze boring into his as she spoke slowly, deliberately. "I lied."

As he watched, horrified, she wrapped her fingers around the glass chamber and squeezed until it shattered in her fist. Meg shook broken glass and blood-tinged antidote from her fingers, then smiled and patted his cheek.

"Paybacks a bitch," the demon taunted, before leaving him alone with his own. "Have fun, Dean."

000000

He'd been watching her for the last day and a half, from a distance. It didn't require much effort to avoid her, or her thugs. The demons were far too arrogant to entertain the notion that someone might manage to find them in spite of their various wards and seals.

He heard the abomination exit the building before he saw her. A succession of stomping boot heels across a rotted porch, then hopping down into the mud like a giddy child.

The very sight of her turned his stomach, and he toyed with the idea of smiting her on the spot. He didn't need her, not really. He could execute his plan without her. But for once, they had a common goal. And besides, if anything went wrong he could always use her to cast suspicion away himself.

He waited until her misplaced sense of security lead her a few feet beyond the safety of her wards. Her thugs were bound to be just inside the building, he wasn't threatened by them, but didn't see the need to bother dirtying his hands with something so insignificant. And one never knew when some extra cannon fodder could come in handy.

She stopped short when she saw him, eyes wide, "Shit," she spat, taking a step backwards. "Not another one of you cloud-hopping pansies." She glanced over her shoulder, to the warded house and he could tell she was about to make a run for it.

She spun, heel slipping in the mud, and started to sprint. He sighed. Blinked and reappeared in her path, once more stopping her short. He raised a hand, and she flinched, closing her eyes as she awaited the inevitable.

Any other day, he mused, as he waited for the beast to realize she hadn't yet been winked out of existence. It was almost comical the way she peeked open one eye, clearly confused as to why she was still standing there in one piece.

He twisted his lips into a disgusted grin. "We should talk."

000000

Sam leaned back against the comfortably-worn loveseat, taking a moment to relax and decompress from the day's stresses. He turned and smiled at his girlfriend, tucked warmly against his side. On a plush chair past Jess lounged one of his best friends, Brady. The pre-med student had come over after his classes and was now the trio was enjoying dinner and a movie. A relaxing, casual evening.

A  _ding_  from the narrow kitchen prompted Jess to pause the movie to pull the batch of finished cookies from the oven. Sam sipped his beer as he waited for her to return, nearly choking on the brew as an unfamiliar voice spoke up from behind him.

"So, this is what little Sammy Winchester dreams about?"

Sam shot to his feet and whirled to find a short brunette sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, pulling apart a gooey chocolate chip cookie. To her right was Jessica, seemingly frozen in the motion of settling the baking tray onto the counter. Eyes wide, he looked over his shoulder to find Brady sitting motionless as well.

"You know," the woman said casually, taking a bite from the cookie she was playing with. "Your buddy over there is a demon, right?"

Sam jerked his head back, gaze darting wildly between his Brady and the strange woman. "What are you talking about?"

She shrugged. "You remember your sophomore year, when he came back after Thanksgiving break all messed up, started partying, dropped out of pre-med. Yeah, that's because he was possessed."

Sam felt a chilly flush of sadness drop down to his core. He shook his head in denial. Whoever this person was –  _whatever_  she was – she couldn't be telling the truth. There was just no way, because that would mean . . .

"Sorry, Sammy, but it's true. Azazel thought you were getting soft, losing your edge, so he had one of his cronies possess your friend. Who then introduced you to Jessica." She turned to the blonde next to her, expression falling. "So, you could fall in love, just so he could torch her, and you'd be forced back into hunting. Suppose that plan backfired on him though, huh? Considering you and your brother killed 'im."

Sam ducked his chin and shook his head. He wanted to deny her words, but it made sense. No matter how painful, it  _felt_ true. He swallowed thickly before raising glassy eyes back to the intruder. "Why are you telling me this, who are you, and what do you want?"

She took a moment to finish her cookie before finally answering him. "My name is Seraphiel, and I'm an angel. The angel of secrets and Tuesday, to be exact, and not to be confused with the angel of Thursday." She hopped off the counter, and in a snap of her fingers both Jessica and Brady were gone, along with the rest of the room. The two now stood in a dark empty space, and the angel stepped closer, stopping a foot from Sam. "I told you because I thought you deserved to know. And I wanted to make sure you were paying attention."

He clenched his hands into tight fists at his side, unsure what to think of the angel. Dean had mentioned that angels were dicks, but so far, he'd only met Castiel and he had been nothing but helpful. And Dean was . . . "Okay. You have my attention. What do you want."

"I want to help you, Sam."

Sam cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "With?"

Seraphiel frowned. "Finding your brother," she said, like the answer should have been obvious.

It all came rushing back to the front of his mind, and despite his desire to remain steely in the face of this stranger – who was digging around in his subconscious like she belonged there – he flinched. "Why?" he asked. Not that Sam was opposed to the help, but he was unsure of the angel's intentions. His brother has already been in Meg's hands for three days, and they were no closer to finding him than they had been when he'd first gone missing. Three long days in the hands of someone who hated him with a passion and wanted nothing more than to see him hurt and broken.

Seraphiel folded her arms over her chest and pulled her gaze away, looking off in the distance before sighing and turning back to him. "Your brother is important, and not just because of his knowledge of future events. Sam, if Lilith or Meg realize what your brother is, they  _will_  kill him and scatter his ashes, so no one will ever be able to put him back together."

"What do you mean  _what_  he is?" Sam asked harshly. There was a chance he'd heard her wrong, but for too long he felt like he didn't have the whole story. And as much as he didn't want to fall down this rabbit hole once more he couldn't help believing the sincerity in her voice.

Instead of answering him, she tilted her head up, eyes narrowed as though hearing something he couldn't. "I have to go. I'll be in touch."

"Wait, what—"

Before he could finish the thought, Sam snapped awake. He jerked into a seated position in his bed, breathing harshly, and dragged a hand down his face.

000000

Dean attempted to flex the fingers of his left hand. Pins and needles shot through them, but different than the temporary lack of circulation he'd grown accustomed to experiencing on long drives. This was a tingling that suggested he may have permanently damaged his wrists during his drugged, tormented haze, desperately attempting to escape not only the bonds holding him, but the horrifying assault these hallucinations had launched on all his senses.

As the effects of the drug began to wear off, he tried to ground himself to reality by focusing on the very real pain in his skewered right shoulder. He had tried to use that pain to ground himself during the mental torture, but in mere moments he'd been unable to tell what pain was real and what had been dragged up out of his memories. He couldn't be sure of how much time had passed since he was dosed, if it was a few hours, or a few days. Time had lost all meaning in his struggle against the effects of the drug.

He squeezed his eyes shut through the worst of it, hiding the awful images from sight. But it did little good overall, as he was unable to do anything to block out the smells, or the sounds. The screams that had pushed him past his limits. Reality had been bad enough the first time around, breaking him in a way he never thought possible. This second encore twisted and manipulated by his own guilt and fear proved that he still had something left to lose, that there was a point below rock bottom. He didn't know how long it had been since he last chanced opening his eyes, but after what seemed like an eternity, he realized the screams were fading along with the flood of adrenaline the drug caused, leaving him feeling cold, worn, and utterly spent.

Violent tremors wracked Dean's body as the drug began to break down in his system. The tortured screams that had surrounded him and pervaded his very being had receded to faint nightmarish echoes at the edge of his awareness. He was through the worst of it, yet at the same time, he knew the worst was only beginning.

Steeling himself, Dean rolled his one good shoulder back and peeled open his eyes.

His wrists were wrecked, the slim steel ties gory and blood-slicked. Beyond the tips of his trembling fingers, the dim room appeared to be empty. His own labored breathing was loud and harsh in the absence of the deafening sounds that had filled the room, though he could still hear occasional remnants of tearing flesh and muted screams.

He was alone.

The thought settled in the back of his mind, and he bit his lip against a swell of hot tears.

_You're dying. This is what death feels like. You're going to die alone._

He hadn't allowed himself to believe the demon when she told him Sammy was dead, but sitting here, exhausted, bruised, shattered, and shaking in the aftermath of a second round of horrific mental torture rooted in the reality of his past, the fraying thread of hope he'd been clinging to had been sawed straight through. His fingers curled around the arms of the chair, digging painfully into the blood-spotted wood.

He was going to die here. Dean understood that with a painful clarity that was as frightening as it was liberating. If Sam was still alive then he would have found him by now. Meg was cruel and crafty, but she was also impulsive and rage-driven, and that made her sloppy. There was no way she'd have been able to hide him so well from the others for this long.

Which led him to believe the only other viable option left. Meg had done exactly what she had said. Sam and Bobby were gone, Cas was blown to Oz. Since waking up in this godforsaken hellhole he'd attempted to pray to Cas multiple times in the hopes the angel would find him, but so far they had all gone unanswered.

Dean sagged in the chair, head dropping down against his chest and his limbs jerked weakly. If he did die here, he could at least take some comfort with the fact his little brother wouldn't have a front row seat to the end of the world. Wouldn't ever know what bloody, horrific end of days his weak big brother had wrought because he wasn't strong enough. He hadn't  _ever_ been strong enough. For all his good intentions, maybe there was just no changing the way things were meant to be.

Which begged the question: who caused more damage to the world – the Hollow Men, or him?

A particularly vicious spasm rocked his body, and the cold steel ties bit deeper into the ravaged skin of his wrists. There was no suppressing the weak, wounded moan that pushed past his lips. The tremors continued, until his muscles ached, and his head swam, if there was anything in his stomach to throw up, he would have done so a dozen times over. The pain in his wrists and shoulder had faded to a dull, distantly numb discomfort, and the fingers of his left hand felt like ice.

Every now and then, a shadow in the corner of the room teased Dean's attention, and a cold sweat would break out at his temples as he turned his face away, refusing to look. He was terrified of what he might see there, even though he knew the effects of the hallucinogenic drug had all but worn off.

Eventually, the tremors eased, and the still, empty room was filled with only Dean's harsh, ragged breaths. Even when he was  _there_ , with  _them_ , he wasn't sure he'd ever wanted it to be over so damn badly.

A heavy sound of footsteps broke through the silence.

_Not again_ , he silently pleaded. He couldn't do it again. Couldn't do this again. He had thought the first round of the drug had been bad, but this last round, it hadn't just torn through his defenses; it had demolished them. He was terrified—and ashamed—of what information he might offer up to Meg if she threatened him with another dose.

But while the figure who walked into the room was familiar, it wasn't the demon he was expecting.

Dean lifted his chin. "You gotta be kidding me," he managed, his voice a pathetic, dry croak. He swallowed painfully and forced himself to sit up straighter. No way he'd let the feathered son of a bitch see him at his lowest point.

"I assume we've meet before," Uriel said, grinning. He stopped short a few feet from Dean's chair, hands clasped behind his back. "In your previous timeline?"

"Yeah." Dean narrowed his eyes. He wasn't sure what game the angel was playing here, but from what Cas had told him last time, he knew enough to know it would not be in his favor. "Spoiler alert, you die," he bit out.

"Is that so?" Uriel smirked like he found the idea amusing. "Well, we'll have to see what we can do to avoid the same. . .mistakes."

"So, what, you here to make a deal? Trying to get the inside track on what happens next." Dean snorted, and even that brief show of defiance caused pain to rocket through his shoulders and chest. He stiffened, levered a lethal glare at the angel. "Let me save you some time, junkess. Fuck you."

Uriel chuckled throatily. "I'm not here to make a deal with  _you_."

Dean frowned. He opened his mouth and prepared to fire back another retort, but his attention was drawn to the entrance of a second figure. Meg, standing back from the angel, looking smug and cocky yet far more reserved and wary.  _Shit_. He dropped his head and huffed a laugh. "Well, glad to see I've inspired inter-douchebag cooperation. But I'm still not telling you shit."

"That's not the tune you were singing yesterday," Meg piped up from her corner, a feral grin splitting her face.

He clenched his jaw tight and dropped his gaze to the ground as heat flushed his face and ears.

The angel leaned in, dark eyes flashing. "I don't need you to tell me anything, Dean. I'm just going to take it."

Dean's head snapped up to the angel's face, and he only had the briefest of moments to wonder about Uriel's meaning before his entire world exploded in a fury of white-hot pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup, sorry for being two days late, I blame my cat Glitch. It's not actually his fault but I blame him anyways. :P Hope y'all enjoy the new chapter and don't for get to tip your pizza delivery driver on the way out.


	21. Heroes Fall

_When all the heroes fall,_

_The world plays its wicked games,_

_And I am left defenseless_

_'Cause I know the sky's gonna say my name._

_The sky's gonna say my name._

_A pennant_

_Waiting for a rescue._

* * *

Sam bolted upright in bed and threw the covers from his legs, turning automatically to squint at the clock on the nightstand. An ultimately futile effort to gauge how long he'd actually slept, since he had no idea what time it had been when Bobby had finally forced him into bed. He'd resisted, not wanting to leave the hunt for Dean for even an hour, but after running nearly four days on nothing more than caffeine and micro naps, the older hunter had gone so far as to threaten Sam with Castiel if he didn't sleep at least a few hours.

He looked toward the door to his room, blinking away the fuzz of a stretch of sleep much shorter than his mind or body truly wanted, and thought about the angel from his dream. Part of Sam – the rational part that had very nearly been a lawyer – believed that maybe it had really been just that, a dream. The result of an overly tired, desperately hopeful imagination. Except it had felt too . . .  _real_. And if it had been a dream, why the hell would his brain have conjured the image of an angel telling him that his college buddy was a demon?

He pushed himself up from the bed and quickly changed into a clean shirt and pair of jeans before heading toward the main rooms of the bunker. It didn't take him long to locate Castiel in the library, glaring down at the screen of an open laptop like he didn't trust the thing. And possibly like he expected it to betray him.

Sam glanced around the room before asking, "where's Bobby?" Despite the older hunter's threats, he had a hard time believing the man had paused the search in order to sleep himself.

"Food run," Cas answered distractedly, jabbing a finger against the keyboard. He frowned when the computer clearly failed to do what he wanted.

Sam pulled out at a chair across the table and sank into it, taking a moment to really look at the angel. He was a bit surprised to see Cas sitting still; since Dean went missing, Castiel had been going nonstop, same as Sam, popping in and out of the bunker as he checked out every lead he could think of. He hadn't known it was possible, but the angel looked worn and tired and in desperate need of a break. If angels even took breaks.

Sam cleared his throat. "Hey, Cas?"

Castiel looked up from the computer screen, shoving the offending object away with disappointment. His gaze fell on Sam's face and he narrowed his eyes. "Something's troubling you," he said slowly. Then, considering, "Other than the obvious, of course."

Sam rolled his lips against his teeth as he tried to figure out how to ask about the angel in his dream. He finally decided to stick with a direct approach, since it had served him well so far. "Cas, do you know an angel called Seraphiel?"

Cas cocked his head, eyebrows worming together. "How do you know that name?"

Sam shifted in his seat and dropped his gaze to where his hands were splayed against the tabletop. "She, uh, appeared in my dream this morning."

"Interesting." Castiel leaned forward in his chair, clasping his own hands in front of him.

"Interesting?" Sam parroted, lifting his head. It wasn't quite the response he'd been expecting, or hoping for, and a heavy feeling settled in his stomach. "Why interesting?"

"In the previous timeline, much like Michael, Seraphiel wasn't directly involved in the events unfolding. Instead, she stayed in heaven, directing forces from there and working through lower class angels stationed on earth." Cas frowned thoughtfully. "I don't believe she ever left heaven."

Sam nodded encouragingly. "Who is she?"

"Seraphiel is the commander of the Seraphim and protector of the scribe of God. She works directly under Michael and the other archangels. If she's on Earth . . ." Cas shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. "What exactly did she say to you?"

Sam swallowed thickly, also uncomfortable with the idea of such a powerful being visiting him in his dream. "She said she wanted to help find Dean. She said he was important." He paused, watching the angel's expression carefully as he asked, "can we trust her?"

"I am unsure of her intentions," he finally admitted. "But . . ." Castiel nodded. "Dean's safety would be a priority."

Sam released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, relieved to know there was at least one more angel out there who had his brother's back. But that didn't mean he didn't still have some reservations about Seraphiel. Clearly, it showed on his face.

"What is it?" Castiel asked.

He chewed his lip. "She also said that if Meg and Lilith found out  _what_  Dean is that they'll kill him and make sure no one can bring him back."

Cas brought his clasped hands up to his chin and leaned into them, contemplating. He was quiet for long enough that Sam started to fidget, before finally the angel broke the thick silence. He lifted his chin, settling against his seatback. He sighed, then told Sam, "Dean is the archangel Michael's vessel. His true vessel." The angel eyed Sam carefully as he spoke. "A fact very few angels knew until after Lucifer's rise and even then, only a select few knew much more than Dean was meant to lead the forces of heaven against the devil."

Sam frowned, shaking his head. "I don't . . . I don't understand."

00000

In the span of a blink, the agony in his head reached levels Dean thought were impossible. Searing heat ripped through him, like he was being torn in pieces. He sucked in a breath that felt like a thousand serrated blades swirling in his lungs, and he was sure that he was dying.

Except he didn't die.

Dean gasped as the sunburst of pain suddenly disappeared, as quickly as it had come on. He fell forward, trying to curl around himself, but was stopped by the bloodied binds at his wrists. What breath he could draw came in short, quick gasps that skipped and stuttered across his lungs. His ears were ringing, through the din he could just make out Meg and Uriel arguing, but the sounds were warbly, lost in the dull drone and floating by him with little significance.

Heart thudding painfully against his ribcage, Dean struggled to get his breathing under control. Whatever the angel had done – had  _tried_ to do – had hurt like a son of a bitch, and while the fiercest of the pain had faded away, his entire body ached and trembled in aftershocks. His fingers curled around the arms of the chair, and he bit his lip to keep from groaning.

A hand snagged his chin, gripping with bruising force and yanking his head up so viciously that Dean heard something crack in his neck.

"You think you're clever, boy?" Uriel sneered, glaring down at him.

"Generally," Dean replied through squeezed cheeks. He blinked furiously in an effort to clear his fuzzy vision, shifted as best he could within the angel's grasp. He wasn't exactly thinking straight and had no idea what the feathered freak was referring to.

The angel's nostrils flared. "That seal can only protect you for so long." He released Dean's face, roughly shoving his head back.

Dean's features folded in confusion as he searched his scrambled thoughts. It took him far too long for his own liking to realize what Junkless was talking about. The seal he'd used to merge his present and future souls together – he'd added an extra sigil he found while translating the spell for the seal. A concealment sigil, a locked door to hide and protect all his memories so Gabriel and those like him couldn't take what wasn't theirs to take.

He leaned forward, clenching his hands into tight fists to absorb the pain the motion caused, and gave Uriel a half-cocked smirk. "Guess you won't just be taking what you want after all."

The angel returned the expression with a sneer of his own, looking down his nose at Dean. "That's where you are wrong." He looked away, shook his head with an arrogant, amused chuckle, one that filled Dean with dread and made him feel about two inches tall. "I doubt a hairless mud monkey like you read the fine print on those sigils, so allow me to alleviate you of your ignorance. Those sigils are only as powerful as the bearer's will." He leaned in closer, until Dean could smell his curdled breath. "Tell me Dean Winchester, do you think your will is stronger than mine?"

He clenched his jaw, sucking in slow, steady breaths as he narrowed his eyes up at the angel. If Uriel wanted to see Dean squirm, well, he'd be damned before giving him the satisfaction.

But when Uriel reached out and placed a palm against the side of his head, Dean flinched in spite of himself. A cruel smile split the angel's face.

"Let's find out then, shall we?"

The angel placed his other hand on the opposite side of his head, and Dean's world exploded all over again in white hot pain.

000000

Sam's shoulders slumped, and he let out a frustrated growl as he slammed the lid of his laptop shut and shoved the computer across the tabletop.

Across the table, Bobby lifted his gaze from his own screen, face folding in frustrating concern.

The heavy iron door at the top of the spiral staircase screeched open, and Sam pushed up out of his seat and turned his attention toward the war room, looking up with wide eyes as Castiel appeared in the bunker, fresh off a new lead. He dug his fingers through his hair as the angel solemnly shook his head, indicating another dead end, one more goose chase.

"Sam . . ." Bobby started softly.

"Bobby don't." Sam wrapped his fingers around the back of the chair, wringing it tightly as he talked. "It's been five days.  _Five days._  What if . . ." He bit down on his bottom lip and turned his face away from the others, unwilling to even finish the thought.

A tense silence fell over the room, Sam sighed heavily, stood upright as he turned to the others, head jerking back as he was met with a empty library. "The hell?"

"Close but try the other direction."

Sam twisted quickly toward the unexpected female voice cutting through the room, eyes widening as he saw the angel sitting on the end of the table. "Seraphiel."

"There you go." She responded, propping her feet up on one of the chairs.

"Is this . . ."

"A dream? Yes, you fell asleep, sort of. I may have helped."

"How," Sam put a hand against his chest, thinking about the sigils Cas had carved there.

"Did I find you? I didn't." She shrugged carelessly. "I found Cas, and he led me to you. Might wanna talked to him about being a bit more careful bout that."

"Alright." Sam started feeling completely over his head but pushing forward anyways. "If you know where I am though, why not just come in, why—" he rolled his hand toward the space around them.

"I have my reasons."

"Which are?"

"Mine. Do you want my help or not?"

Sam held his hands up in computation, shoving down his insatiable curiosity in favor of the far more pressing matter of finding his brother.

She lifted her chin. "Due to the same sigils carved into your brother's ribs, it took a bit to locate him. But—"

"You found, Dean?" Sam took a step closer, hope surging through his chest as his heart thumped wildly. "How? Where? Is he okay?"

The angel's eyes narrowed, a moment's hesitation before she answered. "He's alive, currently. In Cold Oak, South Dakota. I believe you're already familiar with the area."

Sam swallowed thickly, remembering all-too-well the events that taken place at Cold Oak. "Why would she take him there?"

Seraphiel folded her arms over her chest. "It's hidden, nobody in their right mind would go there, and as a known supernatural hotbed, it would be easily overlooked."

"But if you know where he is," Sam started, "can't you just – "

"No," the angel responded shortly, and simply, not giving any further reason.

Sam bobbed his chin, head spinning, and he started compiling a mental list of the supplies they'd need to get his brother, then to get Dean home safely. A question pushed unbidden to the front of his mind. "If the sigils keep you from finding us, then how did you find Dean?"

Seraphiel paused, not answering right away. Sam didn't know the angel, but he could tell the hesitation was uncharacteristic. The uneasy expression looked out of place on her and that alone filled his gut with dread.

"I heard him," she finally said.

"Praying?" Sam asked, confusion pinching his face.

"Screaming," she corrected, her tone softer and tinged faintly with regret. "He called out for help, and the sound shook the heavens."

Nausea surged in Sam's gut, and he placed his hands against the table as he struggled to steady the suddenly tilting bunker. "Why," he swallowed thickly trying to get his thoughts in order so to make sure they weren't walking into an ambush. Sam's heart yelled  _trust_   _her_ , told him to get his ass to Cold Oak and get his brother. But his head needed to know exactly how she'd managed to find Dean in just one day when they'd been looking for five. He had to ask, because he didn't need to trust her, just her information. "If . . . heaven . . . could hear him, why couldn't Castiel?"

She stood taller with all eyes on her. "I can't say for sure, but I believe some of the demon's warding was placed specifically with Castiel in mind. It was only after I realized he couldn't hear his charge that I thought it prudent to intervene on Dean's behalf."

Sam felt the overwhelming urge to sit down, before he fell down, he tried desperately not to imagine what it would take for his older, unstoppable brother to not only cry out for help but to do so, so desperately that it would shake the heavens. Whatever that meant. He instead tried to direct his thoughts in a different direction.

He swallowed thickly, looked up to the angel and blinked as she and the room began to waver. He could hear an urgent voice talking but couldn't make out the words, like someone was speaking from the other end of a long tunnel as everything went dark.

He felt fingers tapping against his cheek, the feeling becoming more pronounced as the voices cleared.

"Come on kid." He could hear Bobby muttering under his breath.

His eyes felt heavy, like it'd be much easier to just sink back into the soft oblivion, then a thought jolted through him and his eyes snapped open with a sharp breath. "Bobby." He looked into the old hunter's face then over to a equally as worried Cas standing just over Bobby's shoulder.

"Bobby let out of breath." You gave me a heart attack kid. I told you, you need to—"

"I know where Dean is."


End file.
